Two days before Hanukkah and three before Christmas, the cosmos will bring you an early holiday gift—no telescope required. The Ursid meteor shower peaks in the early morning hours of December 22, after midnight through dawn. It’s not the most spectacular shower of the year, but it is the last one of 2016, and it’ll tide you over until the Quadrantids next month. (And making a big production of going outside to watch the sky is a pretty good way to drop a big hint about that telescope you want for Christmas or Hanukkah.)

Danielle Moser, a meteor scientist with the Meteoroid Environment Office at NASA’s Marshall Space Flight Center, tells mental_floss that you can expect to see a handful of meteors if you’re patient. “Not all of the meteors you’ll see while out observing belong to the Ursid meteor shower—some are sporadic background meteors and some belong to other active showers. If you see a meteor, try to trace it backwards. If you end up near the Little Dipper, there’s a good chance you’ve seen an Ursid.”

HOW 8P/TUTTLE WAS DISCOVERED… TWICE

 
While some meteor showers have been studied for millennia, the Ursids have only been observed for a relatively short time. The shower’s parent is comet 8P/Tuttle, discovered in 1790 by Pierre Méchain. Decades later, in 1858, it was rediscovered by Horace Tuttle, and thus earned its name. (Don’t feel bad for poor Pierre, though. He discovered so many things in his lifetime that he probably wouldn’t remember this meager little comet anyway.)

Around the turn of the century, William Denning, an amateur astronomer and renowned comet hunter from England, recognized the radiant, or the seeming point of origin, of the Ursid meteor shower. The association with the Tuttle comet was immediately suspected, and later observations would confirm it.

It turns out Tuttle is a “contact binary”—a small, solar system object made of two bodies that have gravitated toward each other until they touch, like the rubber-ducky shaped 67P/Churyumov–Gerasimenko. We know now that Tuttle’s orbit around the Sun takes just under 14 years. As it goes about its orbit, it leaves behind a trail of particles that, over the centuries, has organized. When the Earth crosses into this debris field, those particles slam into our atmosphere and burn away. That release of energy takes the appearance of “shooting stars.” A meteor shower is born.

WHEN TO WATCH

The shower appears to originate in the Little Dipper, which is how it gets its name. The formal name of the Little Dipper is Ursa Minor, which translates as Little Bear. (Of course, some will argue it looks a lot more like a spoon.)

The shower will appear highest in the sky in the hours before sunrise on December 22, so set your alarm clock accordingly. The shower can produce around 10 meteors per hour, and to see them, all you’ll need is to find a place with no light and look up.

Moser suggests that you keep a thermos of hot chocolate in your hands and your phone in your pocket. “You’ll see more meteors if you let your eyes adjust to the dark,” she says. “As soon as you look at a bright light source like your phone, you have to start the adjustment process all over again! And hot chocolate will keep you warm and awake while patiently braving the cold December weather.”

The Ursids have had some pretty spectacular showings—most notably in 1986, with spikes on the order of 100 meteors per hour. Don’t get your hopes up for a wild display in 2016, however. Rather, appreciate the Ursids for what they are: an annual tradition of rare and romantic shooting stars in a beautiful, wintry, night sky. Enjoy the last big meteor shower of the year, and if it convinces someone to gift you a telescope, get ready: There are some astounding celestial wonders waiting for us in the new year.

As airport security lines stretch out to their full holiday season expanse this month, travelers would be wise to check the TSA’s website to find out what they can bring on the plane and in their checked luggage. They should definitely not follow the example of one woman who, in 2008, was arrested after a Santa Claus ornament she was trying to bring through security was discovered to have a 4.5-inch-long knife concealed inside. (She said that the ornament was a gift and claimed to have no knowledge of its contents.) None of these innovative efforts to smuggle contraband worked, either—but they all get points for creativity.

1. A BURRITO

In May 2016, Customs and Border Protection agents in Tucson, Arizona busted a woman traveling from nearby Nogales for attempting to transport a pound of methamphetamine in what appeared to be burritos, sans any of the typical burrito toppings. (She must have known guacamole is extra.) Drug-sniffing dogs led agents to the loot, which was worth about $3000.

This isn’t the first time Mexican food has hidden something: In April 2014, agents at the Sonoma County Airport discovered an 8.5-inch knife in an enchilada. Because “the passenger’s intent was delicious, not malicious,” the TSA notes on its Instagram, “she was cleared for travel.”

2. A BAG FULL OF STUFFED ANIMALS

A carry-on bag full of plush tigers bound for Iran caught the attention of X-ray operators at a Bangkok, Thailand airport in 2010 when they discovered it also contained a live—and sedated—tiger cub. Authorities spotted the 2-month-old cub’s beating heart in the scan. The Thai woman carrying the bag was arrested, and the cub went to a rescue center.

3. T-SHIRT CANNONS

Who knew those T-shirt cannons they fire up at every NBA game could serve a purpose other than starting a fan brawl in the arena’s upper decks? Smugglers, apparently. U.S. Border Patrol agents reported seizing more than 30 cans of weed worth about $42,500 scattered across an Arizona field in 2012 after smugglers used pneumatic-powered cannons to lob the goods from Mexico over to American soil.

4. AN APRON

One traveler must have thought she wouldn’t make much of a splash when, in 2005, she loaded a specially-made apron with 15 water-filled plastic bags carrying 51 live tropical fish. The woman tucked the walking aquarium under her skirt; after she flew from Singapore to Australia, she was busted by customs agents, who “became suspicious after hearing ‘flipping’ noises coming from the vicinity of her waist,” according to a press release. The woman faced time in prison and a fine of up to $83,617 (USD).

5. SOCKS

It must have been an uncomfortable boat ride for one Norwegian man in 2009 when he traveled from Denmark to Norway with 14 live royal pythons and 10 albino leopard geckos hidden under his clothes. Customs agents were tipped off by a tarantula they found while searching one of the man’s bags and then really tipped off when they noticed the suspect’s “whole body was in constant motion.” He had transported the lizards in cans attached to his thighs and the snakes in socks duct taped to his torso. The man was fined $2256.

6. COLORING BOOKS

In likely the most colorful of smuggling schemes, inmates at a New Jersey prison in 2011 were found to be sneaking in the prescription drug Suboxone on the pages of children’s coloring books. The drug was dissolved into a paste that appeared to be orange paint on the Disney princess-topped pages, which were also scrawled with child-like handwriting in crayon to make things look extra innocent.

7. A SPARE TIRE WELL

Passengers in a Chevy traveling through the Paso Del Norte entry point in El Paso in 2011 failed to mention the wheels of cheese they had hidden in their car’s spare tire well during their customs inspection. The stowed-away snacks reportedly weighed in at 116.5 pounds and cost the not-so-sneaky cheese smugglers nearly $700 in fines. Even more of a bummer? Border Patrol destroyed the cheese in question. “The best course of action to avoid penalties and help prevent the spread of pests and disease in the U.S. is to declare all your items to CBP,” Hector Mancha, CBP El Paso Port Director, said in a press release. “Every traveler is given multiple opportunities to declare their goods. If they declare the item and it is prohibited they can abandon it without incident. However, if they fail to declare the item, the product will be seized and they will face a $300 civil penalty.”

8. A MR. POTATO HEAD

Ecstasy is said to expand your mind, but it’s unclear what effect more than 10 ounces of the drug produced in one famous head. A Mr. Potato Head toy was intercepted by authorities on its way from to Australia from Ireland in 2007 after officers noticed the famous interchangeable face was carrying more than just spare arms within its back panel. Customs official Karen Williams told the Associated Press that “Whilst this is one of the more unusual concealments that we have seen in recent times, people need to be aware that Customs officers are alert to unusual and often outlandish methods of concealment.”

9. COMPUTERS AND EXTERNAL HARD DRIVES

You might be surprised by how often TSA agents find items concealed in the guts of a computer or external hard drive. In 2012, TSA agents in Jacksonville discovered a knife in a computer; the traveler, who had rented the device, taken it apart, and put it back together, didn’t realize he’d left it there. The situation, Bob Burns wrote on the TSA blog, was “similar to when a surgeon stitches a scalpel inside a patient.”

That was an accident, but many other incidents can’t be explained away, like a 2-inch knife concealed in a laptop between the keyboard and the screen; a 3-inch knife found in a laptop’s hard drive at Dayton International Airport; a knife hidden in an external hard drive; or a loaded 9mm handgun held in place inside a computer with duct tape and modeling clay.

10. A HOLLOWED-OUT SHAVING CREAM CAN

One traveler at Omaha International Airport in October 2015 had about as much luck using a can of shaving cream to smuggle something as Jurassic Park‘s Dennis Nedry. When TSA agents ran his bag of liquids through the X-ray machine, they discovered that the can of shaving cream had been hollowed out and a multitool had been hidden inside.

BONUS: CANES

According to the TSA, sword canes—which are exactly what they sound like, swords hidden in canes—are actually usually smuggled by accident. The security agency comes across the concealed weapons a lot: they make regular appearances on the underrated TSA Blog. Most travelers busted for transporting the walking sticks got them as family heirlooms or from antique or thrift stores with no knowledge of their sharp secret, and are more surprised than the TSA agents when they’re flagged.

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