**Due to unfavorable viewing conditions forecast for this evening, our Gemind Meteor Shower Viewing program has been cancelled.**

Join us at Pebble Hill to view the Geminid meteror shower with astronomer Randy Rhea. Bring a chair or a blanket and enjoy the beautiful night sky with us! This program is FREE and open to all ages.

Looking up on an average night, you’ll see about one falling star an hour. Each falling star is an anticipated but startling surprise, like the tug on your pole when a fish takes the bait. Some meteors are brilliant, others barely perceptible. The peak of the Geminids meteor shower is December 13, and on that night, you might see as many as 60 each hour. But city lights vanquish the beauty. So, on December 13, you are invited to leave town and join us at Pebble Hill to enjoy the show.

Of course, falling stars are not stars at all, but bits of rock and iron. Most are the size of grains of sand to the size of pecans. Space probes travel unimpeded from one end of our solar system to the other. Space is mostly empty, but not entirely. The new James Webb Space Telescope has already been hit, fortunately with only minor damage.

Comets leave a path strewn with debris. As the Earth orbits the Sun, when our path travels through this debris, the quantity of meteors increases, and it’s called a shower. The word shower is a bit of an exaggeration. The sky doesn’t fall, but the observable number of meteors increases.

A bright Moon also spoils the show, but this year the Moon sets early. Also adorning the sky are Jupiter, Saturn, and some beautiful stars and constellations. It’s all a perfect setup for a fun night under the stars. It will also be a chance for your guide, Randy Rhea, to help you learn your way around the heavens.

--Randy Rhea

(Randy Rhea is the author of the book Astronomy is Heavenly and monthly astronomy columns in the Messenger and Thomasville Times Enterprise. Randy is a frequent presenter at Pebble Hill).