Another Saturday Night

Los Angeles was hit Friday by the Pineapple Express — the inundation accompanied by a tiny tornado in one neighborhood.

If the remaining clouds scatter by tonight (Saturday), and the usual light pollution doesn’t prevent us from viewing the stars, we’re promised we might get to see the Geminid meteor shower:

Best views happen sometime between 10 p.m. and midnight — plenty of time for some star-gazing and a good night’s sleep.

The Geminids have a pretty cool backstory. They’re said to come from an extinct comet called 3200 Phaethon, or as NASA’s Meteoroid Environment Office puts it, “the rocky skeleton of a comet that lost its ice after too many close encounters with the sun. Earth runs into a stream of debris from 3200 Phaethon every year in mid-December, causing meteors to fly from the constellation Gemini.”

Hence the name Geminids.