Shooting Stars for the New Year
One of the first highlights on the 2025 astronomy calendar is the annual Quadrantid meteor shower. The popular name for a meteor is a “shooting star.”

The Quadrantids are active from around December 28 to January 12, with a narrow peak period around January 3–4.

During the peak, up to 80 meteors per hour may be visible under good conditions. This meteor shower favors observers in the Northern Hemisphere.

Why the narrow peak period? It’s because meteor showers are created by trails of debris in space called meteor streams—for the Quadrantids, the stream is narrow.