To find Gemini in the Northern Hemisphere, look in the southwestern sky for the constellation Orion, the hunter (opens in new tab), which is easy to spot by the three stars in the hunter's 'belt.' Then look just up and to the left of Orion to see Gemini, high in the southwestern sky. The Geminids, as their name implies, appear to emanate from the bright constellation Gemini, the twins (opens in new tab).

your local time wherever you're observing from, but can be seen as early as 9-10 p.m. (Image credit: Sky & Telescope/Gregg Dinderman) But you'll see as many as possible if you lean back and take in the whole sky - they can appear anywhere across the sky, traveling away from that point.

The meteors appear to come from the Ursa Minor constellation.Geminid meteors appear to diverge from a single spot in the sky, called the radiant, located in the constellation Gemini. The Ursids are fairly low-key, delivering five or 10 meteors an hour, but on rare occasions they can produce outbursts of 100 or more meteors an hour. 17 to 26 and always peaks around the winter solstice, which is Dec. If you miss the Geminids, there's one more chance in 2021 to see meteors. They often fly in spurts, but there could be lulls when you see no meteors at all.

The only thing that makes the Geminid meteor shower take second place to August's Perseid meteor shower is the late fall chill, so take along some hot drinks and snacks, and prepare to settle in.

Instead, look slightly away from the constellation. Don't look directly at Gemini, the shower's radiant point you'll miss some of the amazing tails associated with this wintertime favorite.

Lie flat on your back on a thick blanket or hammock, or sit back in a reclining lawn chair so you can see as much sky as possible.

Give your eyes 30 minutes to an hour to adjust to the darkness.

Here are some tips to get the most out of your nighttime meteor-watching excursion: The shower produced 10 or 20 an hour back then, but the Geminids have grown in intensity over the centuries as Jupiter's gravity tugs particles from 3200 Phaethon closer to the Earth. The first known report of the Geminid meteor shower was in 1833, when it was seen from a riverboat moving slowly on the Mississippi River. When you consider that the Geminid meteor stream has more mass than any other meteor shower, including the Perseids, whatever happened back then must have been pretty spectacular.' There's more: 'Most shower meteors are shed by comets when their orbits take them into the inner Solar System, but the Geminids may be the debris from this long-ago breakup or collision event.

RELATED: 2021 Guide To Meteor Showers And Other Celestial Events.

'There is another object - an Apollo asteroid named 2005 UD - that is in a dynamically similar orbit to Phaethon, prompting speculation that the two were once part of a larger body that split apart or collided with another asteroid.' 'It's either a near-Earth asteroid or an extinct comet, sometimes called a rock comet,' he wrote on a blog on the agency's website. Phaethon is one of the mysteries of the universe, according to NASA meteor expert Bill Cooke.

Meteoroid gemini