The Perseid meteor shower is expected to peak Thursday night into Friday and there are a couple of ways to watch, despite the cloudy skies over New England.
Advertisement
Tonight will be the best time of the year to see the most spectacular meteor shower there is – the Perseids.
The event usually takes places between mid-July and late-August every year.
Most years, Earth might graze the edge of Swift-Tuttle’s debris stream, where there is less activity.
The Perseid meteor shower occurs every year, always peaking in mid-August, but this year’s shower was almost double past years.
The last Perseid outburst happened in 2009, according to NASA. Meteoroids are small particles that come from asteroids or comets.
When the Earth crosses paths with Swift-Tuttle’s debris, specks of comet-stuff hit the Earth’s atmosphere and disintegrate in flashes of light. The reason they are called Perseids is because, from our perspective, they seem to emanate from the constellation Perseus.
You can watch the meteor shower from the comfort of your computer beginning at 10 p.m. ET thanks to NASA’s live-stream, but prime-time viewing is from midnight to dawn.
NASA experts recommend spending 45 minutes in the dark beforehand so you can see the “shooting stars” better. And, of course, if you have the ability to get away from light pollution, you will have a much better view of the shower.
Astronomers predict that if conditions are right as many as 200 meteors per hour will light up the sky on the night of Thursday August 11 into the morning of Friday August 12.
Advertisement
The Perseids pose no danger to Earth. Check out this weeks Sky at a Glance for more on where to look for the moon and planets each night. But an outburst could mean trouble for spacecraft. Find us on Facebook too!
