KARACHI: A faculty member of the Institute of Space Science and Technology, University of Karachi, engineer Absar Ahmed Khan, has managed to capture a meteor shower on camera.

It’s the first time images of the meteor shower were captured through a specialized camera at KU. One image was taken at 4.30am on Dec 13 and the other at 1.45am on Dec 14.

Engineer Absar shared that a meteor shower was a celestial event in which a number of meteors were observed to radiate or originate from one point in the night sky. Pakistan lies in the Northern Hemisphere and viewing was good all night in the region.

Geminid Meteor Shower creates a brilliant display in the night sky

He mentioned that they were often called shooting stars. According to him, the Geminid Meteor Shower is popularly known as the ‘King of Meteor Showers’. These particular showers originate from the Geminid Constellation, hence the name.

He said that the Geminid shower rate was even better this year as the showers peak overlapped with a nearly new moon, so there were darker skies and no moonlight to wash out the fainter meteors.

However, he pointed out that since Karachi was heavily polluted, it was difficult to capture those meteor showers on camera, but they were seen from the naked eye by constantly staring at the sky.

Engineer Absar said that various attempts had been made to capture at least one visible shower by the institute. These meteor showers plunge into Earth’s atmosphere at 22 miles per second and when they vaporise in the streaks, they are called shooting stars.

The annual meteor showers are; Quadrantids (Jan 1-6), April Lyrids (April 19-24), Eta Aquarids (May 1-8), Delta Aquarids (July 15, August 15), Perseids (July 25, Aug 18), Orionids (Oct 16-27), Taurids (Oct 20-Nov 30) and Leonids (Nov 15-20).

Published in Dawn, December 15th, 2020