The Perseid meteor shower is expected to produce up to 200 meteors per hour when it peaks in the early morning hours on Friday, providing skywatchers with one of the best meteor shower shows in years.
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Astronomers expect this shower, however, to feature 20 times the usual meteors seen per hour to at least 200 meteors an hour.
When the Earth brushes up against this trail, the debris that hits our atmosphere disintegrates, causing the flashes of light visible from Earth.
“These meteors are called Perseids because they seem to fly out of the constellation Perseus”, NASA writes.
“Here’s something to think about: The meteors you’ll see this year are from comet flybys that occurred hundreds if not thousands of years ago”, said Bill Cooke with NASA’s Meteoroid Environments Office in a news release.
The shower will enter the Earth’s upper atmosphere at around 130,000mph, lighting up the night sky as fast-moving streaks of light, so they may be hard to photograph but read our tips in the link below.
The reason? According to NASA, Earth will be running into more material left behind by Comet Swift-Tuttle, the source of the meteors. In fact, they have even called it a “meteor outburst”, saying that under the flawless conditions, up to 200 meteors per hour are possible.
Possibly. The best times to head outside are around midnight and just before dawn on August 12.
“The meteors look like falling stars, but majority are the size of a grain of sand”, he said. Lie on your back and look straight up. If they do, according to NASA scientists, this could be quite the show for us Thursday night into Friday morning.
At the height of the shower, you could average seeing a meteor a minute.
Tonight is the first of two nights that you can see an especially vibrant meteor show put on by the Perseids.
The best place to watch the meteor shower is in the countryside or anywhere with a wide open sky.
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If you don’t see any meteors right away, don’t panic: it takes about half an hour for your eyes to fully adjust to the darkness.
