Quadrantids: One of the Best Meteor Showers for 2025?
By Graham Jones. Published 30-Dec-2024
The bright Moon sometimes affects meteor showers. But it won’t interfere with this winter’s Quadrantids, which peak around January 3–4.
The Quadrantids are best seen from the Northern Hemisphere. In the top left of this photo, a Quadrantid meteor streaks across the sky over Mount Fuji in Japan.
©iStockphoto.com/Kazushi_Inagaki
Shooting Stars for the New Year
One of the first highlights on the 2025 astronomy calendar is the annual Quadrantid meteor shower. The popular name for a meteor is a “shooting star.”
The Quadrantids are active from around December 28 to January 12, with a narrow peak period around January 3–4.
During the peak, up to 80 meteors per hour may be visible under good conditions. This meteor shower favors observers in the Northern Hemisphere.
Why the narrow peak period? It’s because meteor showers are created by trails of debris in space called meteor streams—for the Quadrantids, the stream is narrow.
Go to our Interactive Meteor Shower Sky MapHow to see meteor showers
What Will the Moon Do?
Whenever there’s a meteor shower, the big question is: will the Moon interfere?
The Moon is by far the brightest object in the night sky. Its glare lights up the darkness, hiding the fainter meteors.
A Full or nearly Full Moon—when the Moon’s face is close to 100% lit up—is particularly unhelpful for catching shooting stars: not only is the Moon at its brightest, it’s up all night from sunset to sunrise.
Moon phase calendarOn the other hand, a New or nearly New Moon—when the Moon is closer to 0% illuminated—is ideal. A thin Crescent Moon produces less glare, and spends less time in the night sky. A Waxing Crescent Moon sets soon after sunset, while a Waning Crescent Moon rises shortly before dawn.
Moonrise and moonset in your locationMeteors Versus the Moon
In terms of the Moon’s brightness, the Quadrantids are one of the better meteor showers in 2025.
The following table lists nine of the major meteor showers during the year.
The second column gives the approximate peak dates of the shower. These dates can vary depending on your time zone—in this table, the dates are given in UTC.
The third column gives the Moon’s illumination at midnight on the peak night (again, in UTC).
Moon Illumination Around Meteor Shower Peaks, 2025
| Shower | Peak (Approx) | Moon Illumination |
|---|---|---|
| Quadrantids | Jan 3–4 | 19% |
| Lyrids | Apr 22–23 | 30% |
| Eta Aquarids | May 5–6 | 64% |
| Perseids | Aug 12–13 | 84% |
| Draconids | Oct 8–9 | 95% |
| Orionids | Oct 21–22 | 0% |
| Leonids | Nov 17–18 | 5% |
| Geminids | Dec 13–14 | 30% |
| Ursids | Dec 22–23 | 8% |
Winners and Losers in 2025
We can see from the table that the Moon will only be about 19% illuminated around the peak of the Quadrantids. This will be a Waxing Crescent Moon that sets a few hours after sunset.
Alas, later in the year, the Moon will interfere with the Perseids, which is the big summer meteor shower for skywatchers in the Northern Hemisphere. There’s a Full Moon on August 9, and the Moon’s face will still be about 84% illuminated when the Perseids reach their peak a few days later.
On a more positive note, the Moon phase will be ideal for this year’s Orionids—the peak of this shower coincides neatly with an invisible New Moon.
How Did the Quadrantids Get Their Name?
A meteor shower appears to emerge from a particular region of the sky called the radiant.
In the case of the Quadrantids, the radiant lies among a group of stars that used to be known as the constellation Quadrans Muralis—hence the Quadrantid meteor shower.
Today, Quadrans Muralis is not one of the 88 constellations officially recognized by the International Astronomical Union. Instead, we now say that the radiant lies in the constellation Boötes.