Heads up! It's time for the Geminid meteor shower, one of the best shows of the year

December isn't just about the holidays — it's also the time of year we get to enjoy what is often touted as one of the best meteor showers of the year: the Geminids.

The Geminid meteor shower has been underway since Dec. 2, but it peaks this week, on the night of Dec. 13-14.

But even if you have clear skies, there's a little problem: the moon.

"Usually I'm excited to tell everybody the Geminids is the one shower you can get out right after supper and enjoy," said Peter Brown, Canada Research Chair in Meteor Astronomy and a professor at Western University in London, Ont. "And you could still do that this year, but with the moon, it's really going to crimp things."

With most meteor showers, the radiant — or the constellation from which the meteors appear to originate — tend to rise later into the night, such as the summer Perseid meteor shower, which is also considered to be one of the best showers of the year.

With the Geminid meteor shower, Gemini rises around 7 p.m. local time, allowing those who may not want to stay up until the wee hours of the morning to catch a glimpse of some meteors.

However, this year, the moon will be almost 97 per cent illuminated and fairly high in the sky early in the evening, which means you'll only be able to see the brightest of the Geminids.

Here's where the good news comes in: the Geminids tend to produce bright fireballs, so you'll still have a good chance of seeing some meteors.

Meteor showers occur as Earth plows through leftover debris from comets or — rarely — asteroids. In this case, the Geminids come from the asteroid 3200 Phaethon. 

As the small particles burn up in our atmosphere, they appear as streaks in the sky, or as some like to call them: "shooting stars."

But the Geminids are special.

Brown says that one of the interesting things about the Geminid meteor shower is that they often drop meteorites, pieces of its parent object that reach the ground.

"I mean, you could actually go out and find a Geminid, a piece of Phaethon," he said. 

To date, however, no one has been able to find them, he said, but they're out there.