The best meteor shower of the year is coming — here’s how to watch them

If you like To get into stargazing in 2025, there’s still a chance to catch some of the best meteor showers of the year. Meteors, also known as shooting stars, occur when Earth’s orbital path crosses a path of debris left by a comet and that material burns up in Earth’s atmosphere. Watching meteor showers is one of the most accessible ways to experience the night sky.

The next shower is the Geminid shower, a crowded, bright shower that peaks in mid-December, offering the opportunity to see hundreds of meteors every hour. This is just one of nine major meteor showers that grace the skies throughout the year, and details of when they will appear in the Northern Hemisphere are below, so mark your calendar for 2026 for that.

Next big meteor shower: Gemini

Geminis are active from approximately December 4 to 17, and peak overnight from December 13 to 14. It has a sharp peak, so the night of the 13th is the best time to observe the sky.

The Geminids are among the most spectacular meteor showers of the year. In addition to containing up to 120 or even 150 meteors per hour during its peak, this meteor shower is also the brightest and most colorful of the year.

Geminid meteors are bright, slow-moving meteors that often have yellow hues, but can be a range of other colors, including green, blue, white, red or orange. Unlike most meteors, which are produced by comet debris, Geminid meteors are the remains of an asteroid.

The night of Gemini’s peak, its radiant, the constellation Gemini, will be above the horizon all night and will reach its highest point around 2 a.m. local time, so meteors will be visible almost all night.

That same night, the moon will be about 32 percent illuminated and will rise around 1:30 a.m. in the eastern U.S., so if you view this shower a little after midnight, the moonlight won’t interfere with your viewing experience.

How to watch meteor showers

You don’t need any special equipment to see a meteor shower – in fact, using devices like binoculars or telescopes actually prevents you from seeing the meteors, because they move too quickly to be seen through the lenses of such equipment. All you need are your eyes, a dark sky with little to no moonlight, and a location away from excess light, where moonlight and light pollution can wash out the meteors.

Notice that the moon appears (rise) and disappears (set) in the night sky at different times depending on the time zone you are in. All moonrise/set times in this widget are for the eastern United States. You can use tools like our moonrise/set calendar for time and date or this tool from the US Naval Observatory to check exact moonrise/set times at your specific location.