Meteors and Winter Milky Way

The annual Geminid meteor shower, which peaks on December 13/14, displayed a unique show in 2009. The shower is created as planet Earth sweeps through dusty debris from extinct comet Phaethon. In this photograph from Zagros mountains of Iran two bright shooting stars strike the western sky in the prominent constellation Orion (center) and Taurus (left). Sirius, the brightest star of our night-time, is on the left side, bordering the Milky Way band.