The meteors are called Perseids because they seem to fly out of the constellation Perseus.
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Forecasters are predicting a Perseid “outburst” this year with double normal rates on Thursday night into Friday, said Bill Cooke with NASA’s Meteoroid Environments Office in Huntsville, Ala., in a statement.
The shooting stars will be visible throughout the week, but tomorrow there’ll be more than 80 stars visible every hour, with the Perseids reaching the high point of their 12-year cycle this year.
The Perseid shower, which returns every August when Earth passes through the debris trails of the comet Swift-Tuttle, is getting a gravitational assist this year from Jupiter.
As NPR’s Nell Greenfieldboyce explains on All Things Considered, NASA is expecting more meteors than usual this year “because Jupiter’s gravity has tugged some streams of comet material closer to Earth”. The Perseid meteor shower is coming! These scattered specks of dust a trail in the comet’s wake are what flash as they enter the atmosphere at a mind-blowing 132,000 miles per hour and burn up. Each swing through the inner solar system can leave trillions of small particles in its wake. You’ll want to wait until the moon is below the horizon around 12:45 a.m. Friday and give yourself plenty of time to allow your eyes to dark-adapt (30-45 minutes).
Lie on your back and look straight up!
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In South Florida, if the clouds are in check, the only obstacle left is light pollution. A meteor shower can be made up of several different streams that have happened years before, even 100 years before. So your best bet is late night August 11, or dawn on Friday, August 12. NASA will be live overnight on Thursday and Friday, starting at 10 p.m. ET.
