Astronomers have called it the strongest meteor shower of 2009 as the Gemini Meteor Shower peaked around midnight Sunday night. If High Country residents were able to sneak a peek at the shooting stars through the slightly overcast skies, they were certainly in for a treat. Global reports state the new moon kept skies dark enough to display the meteor shower across all of North America.

The Geminids are reportedly pieces of debris from an extinct comet. The Earth runs into a stream of debris from the comet every year in mid-December causing meteors to fly from the constellation Gemini. The meteor shower was first spotted in the 1860's and has been growing stronger ever since because the gravitational pull from Jupiter has been shifting the debris more and more into the Earth's orbit around the sun.