Shooting star to light up night sky

If you ‘re up early on Friday morning, you might be lucky enough to catch a regular, if fleeting visitor to our skies.

Comet 46P/Wirtanen, a short-period comet discovered by American astronomer Carl A. Wirtanen in 1948, flies past Earth every 5.4 years, being the closest it gets to the Sun during its orbit.

At an estimated 1.4 kilometres in diameter, it’s a fairly hefty lump of rock and ice dragging a meteroid stream, a cluster of debris, behind it.

Josh Aoraki of the Stardome Observatory recommends looking to the north under a clear sky at 4am. Photo / Michael Craig

Josh Aoraki at Auckland’s Stardome Observatory says that passing through the debris stream will result in a number of shooting stars in the sky.

“There’s little bits of gas, dust and rocks that fall into the atmosphere and they produce a higher than usual amount of medials, or shooting stars,” Aoraki said. “If you get up early on Friday morning - the best time is going to be about 4am - that’s the time you’re going to potentially see the most medials.”

The comet passed relatively close to Earth in 2018 at just under 11 million km and is reasonably close again this year when the Earth passes through a denser stream of debris that will produce, hopefully, a brilliant show for observers.

Aoraki says to look toward the north where a bright star called Sirius can be found. Directly below that are two more bright stars of the Gemini constellation where the shooting stars will appear.

Comet 46P Wirtanen (green blob top centre) and an 'earth-grazer' meteor (circled bottom) photographed in California on December 2018. Photo / Steven Christenson

“The Geminids is an annual meteor shower that occurs every single year at roughly the same time,” he said. “This year it peaks on the 15th of December.”

Aoraki recommends checking the weather forecast before venturing out as clear skies will be necessary for viewing.

“If you do get clear skies head out anywhere away from our cities - you want to get away from light pollution so it’s nice and dark,” he said. “And you want a nice clear unobstructed view looking north.”

And if you miss it? Well, you only have to wait another 5.4 years.