The universe has given us abundant holiday light shows: natural fireworks for the winter solstice, northern lights to ring in the new year. It’s rounding out those festivities with the Quadrantids, the first meteor shower of 2025.
Bright fireballs from the shower, which is one of the few to be caused by debris from an asteroid, began streaking through our skies on Dec. 26 and are expected to continue through Jan. 16. Their peak activity will occur Jan. 2 to 3, or Thursday night into Friday morning.
The Quadrantids are best viewed from the Northern Hemisphere and are forecast to be one of the strongest showers this year. But frigid temperatures, overcast skies and a short peak — just six hours — will make them difficult to spot.
To get a hint of when to watch, you can use a meter that relies on data from the Global Meteor Network. It shows how the fireball activity levels increase in real time.
Where meteor showers come from
There is a chance you might see a meteor on any given night, but you are most likely to catch one during a shower. Meteor showers are caused by Earth passing through the rubble trailing a comet or an asteroid as it swings around the sun. This debris, which can be as small as a grain of sand, leaves behind a glowing stream of light as it burns up in Earth’s atmosphere.
Meteor showers occur around the same time every year and can last for days or weeks. But there is only a small window when each shower is at its peak, which happens when Earth reaches the densest part of the cosmic debris. The peak is the best time to look for a shower. From our point of view on Earth, the meteors will appear to come from the same point in the sky.
The Perseid meteor shower, for example, peaks in mid-August from the constellation Perseus. The Geminids, which occur every December, radiate from the constellation Gemini.
Origin of the Quadrantids
The Quadrantids are named after Quadrans Muralis, an 18th-century constellation that is no longer in use by astronomers. Both the constellation and the shower are named after an instrument called the quadrant, which was once used to measure the altitudes of stars and other bodies in the night sky.
Today, the Quadrantids appear to radiate from the modern constellation Boötes, located in the northern part of the sky near the Big Dipper.
First spotted in 1825, it took more than a century for stargazers to learn where the Quadrantids came from. In 2003, an astronomer at Lowell Observatory in Arizona discovered that a small asteroid, 2003 EH1, was the source of the shower.
How to watch a meteor shower
Michelle Nichols, the director of public observing at the Adler Planetarium in Chicago, recommends forgoing the use of telescopes or binoculars while watching a meteor shower.
“You just need your eyes and, ideally, a dark sky,” she said.
That’s because meteors can shoot across large swaths of the sky, so observing equipment can limit your field of view.
Some showers are strong enough to produce up to 100 streaks an hour, according to the American Meteor Society, though you likely won’t see that many.
“Almost everybody is under a light-polluted sky,” Ms. Nichols said. “You may think you’re under a dark sky, but in reality, even in a small town, you can have bright lights nearby.”
Planetariums, local astronomy clubs or even maps like this one can help you figure out where to get away from excessive light. The best conditions for catching a meteor shower are a clear sky with no moon or cloud cover, at sometime between midnight and sunrise. (Moonlight affects visibility in the same way as light pollution, washing out fainter sources of light in the sky.) Make sure to give your eyes at least 30 minutes to adjust to seeing in the dark.
Ms. Nichols also recommends wearing layers, even during the summer. “You’re going to be sitting there for quite a while, watching,” she said. “It’s going to get chilly, even in August.”
Bring a cup of cocoa or tea for even more warmth. Then lie back, scan the sky and enjoy the show.
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