The popular Perseid meteor shower may get the fair-weather attention, but the real show comes in winter.

Most amateur stargazers huddle by the fireplace in December, when the Geminids rain debris above the Earth's atmosphere. A winter wallop has dropped temperatures to freezing in some parts of the nation, but don't let a difference of a few degrees Fahrenheit keep you from seeing the night show that NASA considers the "best meteor shower of 2009."

The shower (nearly) ends a stellar year for skywatching on a high note—which is appropriate, given that 2009 is the International Year of Astronomy. Meteor showers and plenty of other space-related phenomena captured cyberspace imagination this year. Just a few:

• Annular solar eclipse—just a partial (January 26)
• Poor little Mars rover Spirit gets stuck (April 23...and still spinning its wheels)
• Hubble Space Telescope, repaired (May 18)
• Six crew members emerge from isolation on a fake spacecraft (July 14)
• Remembering the first step: Apollo mission's 40th anniversary (July 20)
• Solar eclipse spurs parties and prayers (July 22)
• Perseids keeps stargazers' necks happily craned (August 12-13)
• A deliberate crash landing on the moon (October 9)
• Pool party! There's water on the moon (November 13)
• Leonids light up the sky (November 17)

Catching the Last Shooting Stars
As for the Geminids, patient stargazers might've already caught its beginnings on December 6, but the meteor shower reaches its peak on the nights of December 13 and 14. For those disappointed by November’s Leonid show, the outlook for the current Geminid shower, which lasts until December 18, is good.

Astronomers believe the Geminids are increasing in intensity every year, yielding 120-160 meteors per hour during the shower. Astronomy magazine expects great conditions for viewing "100 'shooting stars' per hour—an average of nearly two per minute." People in China and Indonesia have the orchestra seats for the Geminid show, and might be able to see more than "300 meteors per hour."

You don’t need a telescope to see the streaks shooting across the heavens. For optimal viewing, NASA pinpoints 12:10 a.m. EST/9:10 p.m. PST, and suggests going somewhere away from the “light pollution” of cities and towns, to an area dark enough to see the stars clearly. Keep your eyes roaming all areas of the sky to spot a meteor. (And dress warmly, bring a blanket, and fill up on hot drinks.)

No Comet Here
At their best, meteor showers provide an intense display of the violence of the cosmos, at a safe distance for earthlings to watch. Meteors are streaks of light created by particles of debris from comets and other celestial bodies hitting the Earth's atmosphere. These particles, called meteoroids, can measure as small as a grain of sand to as large as a boulder.

Usually that space-dust dance comes from lively comets. The Geminid meteors are an exception: They emanate from a dead comet called 3200 Phaethon. As for their name, it's derived from the constellation Gemini, the area of the sky from which the meteors appear to originate.

Astronomical Anniversary
Four hundred years ago, Galileo Galilei invented the telescope and Johannes Kepler came out with his 650-page documentation of Martian motion. That, according to the United Nations, is reason enough to call for a year-long celebration. The International Year of Astronomy hosted events all over the world, and the heavens apparently joined in and threw their own 2009 shows, like the solar eclipse that darkened the skies over Asia.

In the United States, NASA underwent a lot of scrutiny. But even as the bosses were evaluating its core mission, the agency got a few projects literally off the ground—and lots of Web attention: The buzziest may have been the highly risky (and rousingly successful) mission to repair the Hubble Space Telescope. The oddest may have been a March contest for naming a wing of the International Space Station: NASA opted for Tranquility over the more popular "Stephen Colbert," but the satirical TV host got a space-station treadmill named after him.

The Americans weren't the only busy ones: Selected Russian and European volunteers willingly isolated themselves for 105 days here on Earth, to prove their Mars mettle (and next year, the lucky crew gets to spend 520 days in isolation). And tourists who can afford the airfare to the International Space Station always get lots of envious queries—the first clown in space proved no exception this year.

Once in a Blue Moon
The sky shows aren't over yet. The Ursid meteor shower gets its turn December 22, the Pleiades will brighten up the night on December 29, and a blue moon will entertain New Year's Eve revelers. (And no, the moon doesn't turn a shade of turquoise: The phrase just means a second full moon appears in the same month. But don't let that stop you from singing its praises.)

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Copenhagen will turn the city hall square into a centre of a big cultural event. Fotocollage Bo Benzon – Arkitekturministeriet.

From December 7 - 18 the Copenhagen City Hall Square will be transformed into a city of hope. Under the city sign 'Hopenhagen LIVE', the municipality of Copenhagen will turn the city hall square into a centre of a big cultural event focusing on the world's climate challenges and future climate solutions. Hopenhagen LIVE is to gather citizens of Copenhagen, Danes and the population of the world and send an unambiguous signal to the politicians of the world to agree on an ambitious climate agreement to reduce the CO2 emission.

A great experience

Hopenhagen LIVE consists of three principal elements: A globe, a stage, and a series of adventure pavilions, which each in their own individual way will interact with the audience and the surrounding world. The audience will be both challenged and entertained when exhibitions mix with debates, concerts with speeches, art with activism, and play with knowledge.

During COP15both Danish and international artists will give free concerts on Hopenhagen's stage. On December 18 you can experience the Danish rap group Malk de Koijn. Please see the official Hopenhagen LIVE website for a detailed program.

Host: Hopenhagen LIVE is developed by the cultural secretariat Golden Days in collaboration with Roskilde Event & Consult and Experimentarium on behalf of the municipality of Copenhagen.

Webpages: http://hopenhagenlive.dk/ , http://hopenhagen.org/

Public transportation: S-Train central station/Hovedbanegården og Bus line: 10, 12, 14, 26, 29, 33, 67, 68, 69, 2A, 5A, 6A, 173E & 250S.

Entrance fee: Free.

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The primitive crocodiles, which lived 100m years ago, were good swimmers but were also capable of galloping

Fossil hunters have uncovered the remains of primitive crocodiles that "galloped" on land and patrolled the broad rivers that coursed through north Africa one hundred million years ago.

The skeletons of five creatures that walked with dinosaurs – and ate them – were unearthed in remote and rocky regions of what are now Morocco and Niger during a series of expeditions in the Sahara desert.

Three of the crocodiles are new species and include Kaprosuchus saharicus, a 6.5m-long beast with three sets of dagger-like tusks and an armoured snout for ramming its prey.

Another species, Laganosuchus thaumastos, was of similar length but had a pancake-flat head and is thought to have lurked in rivers with its jaws open, waiting for unsuspecting fish to pass.

The most striking feature the beasts have in common was revealed by their bone structure, which suggests they were efficient swimmers but that when they clambered ashore they were also capable of galloping across the plains. Modern crocodiles crawl on their bellies because their legs sprawl out to the side.

"My African crocs appeared to have had both upright, agile legs for bounding overland and a versatile tail for paddling in water," writes Paul Sereno, a palaeontologist at the University of Chicago, in National Geographic Magazine. "These species open a window on a croc world completely foreign to what was living on northern continents."

The third new species, Araripesuchus rattoides, was only a metre long and probably used a pair of buckteeth in its lower jaw to dig for grubs.

The other two crocodiles unearthed during the expedition are known species. One had a wide, overhanging snout containing sensory areas that it used to sniff out prey in shallow waters. The other had a soft, dog-like nose and is thought to have been extremely agile.

Most of the fossils were found near the site where, in 2001, Sereno uncovered a 12m-long crocodile that lived 110m years ago. The beast, nicknamed SuperCroc, weighed around eight tonnes. The latest fossils are described in the journal ZooKeys.

"We were surprised to find so many species from the same time in the same place," said Hans Larsson, a palaeontologist at the University of Montreal, who took part in the expedition. "Each of the crocs apparently had different diets, different behaviours. It appears they had divided up the ecosystem, each species taking advantage of it in its own way."

The expedition was sponsored by National Geographic, which airs a documentary about the discoveries, When Crocs Ate Dinosaurs, at 5pm on Sunday 20 December on the Nat Geo Wild channel.

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