![A meteor streaks past stars during the annual Quadrantid meteor shower in Qingdao A meteor streaks past stars during the annual Quadrantid meteor shower in Qingdao](https://api.time.com/wp-content/uploads/2015/01/rtx172k1.jpg?quality=85&w=2400)
Stargazers are preparing this weekend for the first meteor shower of 2015.
The Quadrantid meteor shower is expected to be most visible in the northern hemisphere around 9 p.m. ET Saturday night and then early Sunday morning.
“The reason the peak is so short is due to the shower’s thin stream of particles and the fact that the Earth crosses the stream at a perpendicular angle,” NASA explained.
Bill Cooke, head of the Meteoroid Environment Office at NASA’s Marshall Space Flight Center, told NBC News that stargazers may only see 10-20 meteors per hour (in clear, dark skies) because of the moon’s glare.
Quadrantids are “caused by fragments of a comet that broke up in the recent past,” according to the International Meteor Organization. “Every year in the final days of December and the first two weeks of January the Earth crosses the stream of debris from the fragmented comet.”
The shower’s name comes from “Quadrans Muralis,” a constellation that does not exist anymore, discovered by French astronomer Jerome Lalande in 1795.
You can watch a livestream of the spectacle via the Slooh Community Observatory’s website.
More Must-Reads from TIME
- Breaking Down the 2024 Election Calendar
- How Nayib Bukele’s ‘Iron Fist’ Has Transformed El Salvador
- What if Ultra-Processed Foods Aren’t as Bad as You Think?
- How Ukraine Beat Russia in the Battle of the Black Sea
- Long COVID Looks Different in Kids
- How Project 2025 Would Jeopardize Americans’ Health
- What a $129 Frying Pan Says About America’s Eating Habits
- The 32 Most Anticipated Books of Fall 2024
Write to Olivia B. Waxman at olivia.waxman@time.com