The end of each year (December 28 to January 12) is an active period for the Quadrantid meteor shower, which visits the Earth to wish Earthlings a happy New Year. The Quadrantid meteor shower will peak between January 3 and 4, peaking at about 4:40 a.m. on January 4 with a ZHR of about 120 meteors.
The radiant point of the Quadrantid meteor shower will reach 20 degrees above Earth’s level at 2:20 a.m. on January 4 and will gradually rise over the next few hours, peaking at dawn, with the entire peak lasting about 4 hours.
The Quadrantid meteor shower has moderate meteoroid speeds, a high number of bright fire meteors, and a distinctly reddish color. The Quadrantid meteor shower has a good flux, but the peak duration is short, only a few hours, after which the flux drops rapidly and the number of meteors decreases to a few to a dozen per hour.
The Quadrantid meteor shower is one of the “Three Great Meteor Showers of the Northern Hemisphere”, alongside the Perseid meteor shower and the Geminid meteor shower. Unlike other meteor showers, the Quadrantid meteor shower, like the Geminid meteor shower, is not a comet, but an asteroid.
