This week, most of the attention will be on the glittering ball dropping in Times Square to ring in 2025. But that won’t be the only shining object people will be hunting for up above this week: The annual Quadrantid meteor shower will also peak just in time to kick off the New Year. The stellar spectacle will produce hundreds of "fireballs" in a sight even the most casual astronomy geeks won’t want to miss.
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You can expect up to dozens of meteors per hour.
Even if outdoor conditions aren’t as comfortable for stargazing in many areas, the Quadrantids are an annual spectacle worth marking off on the calendar. In fact, it’s “considered to be one of the best annual meteor showers,” ranging from about 60 to 200 visible per hour under ideal conditions, according to NASA.
Besides the high potential for a dazzling display, this shower also stands out due to the larger-than-average composition of the meteors themselves, which create “fireballs.” Because of their heftier size, these “larger explosions of light and color” tend to last longer in the sky than typical trails seen in other meteor annual meteor showers over the year.
Hopefully, you’ll have saved some strength from your New Year’s Eve celebrations to catch them. That’s because this year, the Quadrantids are expected to peak from the late evening hours of Jan. 2 to the early morning hours of Jan. 3, per the American Meteor Society.
The shower is created by cosmic debris.
Like many other regularly seen meteor showers, the Quadrantids are caused by Earth’s passage through a trail of dust and rock left behind by passing objects. In this case, it’s asteroid EH1, a roughly 2-mile-wide object that orbits our planet about every five and a half years, per NASA.
However, Earth also passes through this debris trail at an angle instead of straight on. This leads to an unusually short peak window for the meteor shower, which runs for hours as opposed to days. This makes scheduling your viewing times—and hoping for ideal conditions within them—all the more important.
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Any stargazers will want to follow the basic steps for the best viewing possible.
While local weather conditions could still be a factor, this year might be better than average for viewing the Quadrantids. That’s because the moon will only be 11 percent full on the night of the shower’s peak and won’t be so bright as to make it harder to spot the bright “shooting stars,” per the American Meteor Society.
Still, the best show will require getting far outside of cities and towns to avoid light pollution, says NASA. Ideally, try to find a location that provides as much of a view of the open sky as possible. You should also bring warm clothing, blankets, and chairs to get comfortable during a chilly January night.
Once you’ve arrived, try to lie with your feet facing northeast. It will take 20 to 30 minutes for your eyes to adjust to the low-light condition, so avoid looking at your phone’s bright screen, NASA suggests. And as with all meteor showers, it’s important to be patient, lie back, and take in the wonder as it comes.
The takeaway.
One of the “best meteor showers of the year” will take place when the Quadrantids peak overnight from Jan. 2 through Jan. 3. Thanks to a slight moon that will set before the most active hours, macro conditions for this year’s show are slightly better than most. For the best experience, try getting outside of heavily populated areas for ideal dark sky viewing conditions.
“While the meteors are faint, there will be plenty of them for this shower, and thanks to the thin crescent moon not reflecting much sunlight, stargazers under dark skies will see up to a shooting star every minute,” Darren Baskill, an astronomer at the University of Sussex in England, told Newsweek.
