Geminid Meteor Shower - January 3, 2018

An Arkie's Faith column from the January 3, 2018, issue of The Mena Star

The Geminid meteor shower can be seen every year between December 4 and December 16, with its peak activity being around December 13-14. The Geminids were first observed in 1862. The meteor shower is named Geminid because the meteors seem to emerge from the constellation Gemini. The Geminids can be seen with the naked eye from the Northern Hemisphere.

Unlike most other meteor showers, the Geminids are not associated with a comet but with the asteroid, 3200 Phaethon, which approaches the Sun closer than any other named asteroid. Its nearest approach to the sun is only 13 million miles which is less than half of the planet Mercury's distance from the sun.

Phaethon was the first asteroid discovered by using images from a spacecraft. Astronomers discovered it on October 11, 1983. Shortly after its discovery, Astronomers observed that the orbital elements of the asteroid were the same as the orbital elements of 19 Geminid meteors. They determined that Phaethon is the parent body of the Geminids meteor shower of mid-December.

This year my wife and I watched the Geminid meteor shower from my cousin's house on a hilltop overlooking the valley below. The four of us sat outside visiting and drinking hot chocolate as we looked up into the sky waiting to see falling stars. Over the next hour and a half, we saw dozens of meteors streaking across the sky.

As we craned our necks to see the next falling star, I noticed something unusual. Even though we were all looking in basically the same direction and for the same thing, seldom did we all see the same streak of light. The average time that a meteor is visible to the naked eye is less than half a second. By the time someone would see a meteor and point in the direction it would no longer be visible. Scientists have studied reaction times and determined that a meteor needs to last close to a second for someone to be able to point it out to another person. There were a few falling stars that were so bright and lasted long enough that all four of us were able to see it.

Sitting out under the stars and watching the sky was a relaxing way to spend a couple of hours. I enjoyed the experience, and it left me feeling peaceful. My life has been very stressful lately and watching the meteor shower was a great way to de-stress.

Watching a meteor shower hasn’t always been a way to lessen stress. In ancient times, people were very superstitious about unusual objects in the night sky. Throughout recorded history, people have watched the night sky, and celestial phenomena like meteor showers brought about responses ranging from curiosity to hysteria. Meteor showers were something very strange and terrifying to our ancestors. There have even been times when a meteor shower scared everyone, causing people to be terrified, believing they were sent from the angry gods. They believed that meteors were signs of future wars, diseases, famines, and hardship.

Today it is easy for us to think that people in times past were crazy for worrying about such things. Modern educated people would never worry about such silly things. But we do worry. You would think that Christians would be exempt from worry, but we are not. Sometimes we wonder if the apostle Paul was out of touch with reality when he wrote in Philippians 4:6 (NCV) “do not worry about anything, but pray and ask God for everything you need, always giving thanks.”

Did Paul mean that a Christian has no worries? If he did, then every Christian knows that they don’t measure up to Paul’s standard. He wrote the phrase in the present active tense, which puts a bit of a different meaning to his statement, “do not worry about anything.” The presence of anxiety is unavoidable, but what we do about it is what matters. God doesn’t want us to be in a perpetual state of worry. Could you use some peace and calm in your life? We all could use some peace, and God is ready to give it. He says, “do not worry about anything, but pray and ask Me for everything you need, always giving thanks.”

Whenever you go outside at night and look up at the stars, remember that they are a reminder of the power and greatness of God. Isaiah 40:26 (NLT) tells us to, “look up into the heavens. Who created all the stars? He brings them out like an army, one after another, calling each by its name. Because of his great power and incomparable strength, not a single one is missing.”

Gentle Reader, God wants to give you peace. He wants to take your anxieties and worries from you. 1 Peter 5:7 (NLT) tells us to “give all your worries and cares to God, for he cares about you.” If we give our worries and cares to God, He has promised to give us peace. “God’s peace, which goes beyond anything we can imagine, will guard your thoughts and emotions through Christ Jesus.” Philippians 4:7 (GW)