How to watch the Geminid meteor shower this week - and get ready for the winter solstice

"On December 14 each year, the dust from asteroid 3200 Phaethon (only discovered in 1982) provides us with a display known as the Geminid Meteor shower."

A man watches a meteor during the Geminid meteor shower over Brimham Rocks, a collection of balancing rock formations in the Nidderdale Area of Outstanding Natural Beauty in North Yorkshire.

The most notable astronomical event in December is probably the winter solstice. It’s that time of year when the days start to become longer again, when the apparently inexorable lengthening of the nights that started on June 21 is reversed.

It represents the promise of brighter and warmer days to come. It has a psychological impact for us in our modern world, but for our ancestors, the impact was more than psychological.