In 1582 Pope Gregory XIII issued the inter gravissimas, the papal bull that reformed the calendar, which meant that 11 days were removed to accommodate the fact that the reckoning of time drifts away from the stars if we don’t account for the slow precession of Earth in relation to its celestial environment.
What this means this week is that, prior to 1582, the date for the peak of one of the year’s most prolific meteor showers would actually have been Christmas Eve, 11 days later.
The Geminid Meteor Shower is a terrific shower, and it peaks overnight Friday the 13th, when the Moon is nearly full ~ so it may be washed out by the moonlight, but still, it’s worth noting!
The Geminids were first recorded in 1860s, from a riverboat in the Mississippi. This is late for the discovery of a meteor shower, which means it wasn’t around when Pope Gregory issued his calendar reform.
But still, it’s interesting that December 13th (or December 24 “old school”) is observed in the Christian calendar as the Feast of Saint Lucy, a roman martyr from the 4th century, which was around the time that the Christmas festival was first starting to be celebrated. And a century before Gregory’s calendar reform, you can hear the reference to Christmas Eve, rather than December 13th, in the English poet John Donne’s poem Nocturnal Upon St. Lucy’s Day:
Since she enjoys her long night’s festival,
Let me prepare towards her, and let me call
This hour her vigil, and her eve, since this
Both the year’s, and the day’s deep midnight is.
Watch for falling stars that may have once been Christmas stars overnight Friday and note that the Ursid Meteor Shower, though not as prolific as the Gemini, occurs overnight at Winter Solstice~more on that later!
With festive greetings in the sacred season!
~Mary
Hear this episode of The Storyteller’s Night Sky on Interlochen Public Radio Monday, December 9, 2024, and on podcasts wherever you listen, at anytime. And please share! Cover image depicting the radiant of the Geminid Meteor Shower is from Sky&Telescope. The radiant, or center point from which the stars fall through the sky, is near the star Castor, the mortal brother in the constellation of the twins.