One of the strongest meteor showers of the year will peak on Saturday night and early Sunday morning, allowing interested Boulder County viewers to potentially see dozens of colorful shooting stars zipping across the sky.

Prime viewing time of the Geminids meteor shower will be from 10 p.m. Saturday through 2 a.m. Sunday, University of Colorado Boulder Fiske Planetarium Director John Keller said. The Geminids meteor shower occurs when the Earth passes through an area where asteroid 3200 Phaethon orbits, so the Earth runs into space debris, dust and rocks the asteroid left behind in its path. That leftover space debris then smashes into the Earth’s atmosphere, where it burns up, causing shooting stars.

The event is called the Geminids meteor shower because the shooting stars appear to rad

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