This year’s show will be the best yet, NASA says, because Jupiter’s gravity is shoving the comet’s debris towards Earth.
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This year, forecasters also predicted a Perseid outburst, a meteor shower with more meteors than usual. Under ideal conditions, that could mean viewing up to 200 shooting stars per hour.
Perseid meteors travel at the incredible speed of 132,000 miles per hour – 500 times faster than the world’s fastest vehicle, according to NASA. Meteors will also be visible Friday night into Saturday morning, but the encore won’t be almost as impressive as Thursday’s show.
Take your chairs or blankets to the darkest local beach and wait a few minutes for your eyes to adjust. This year it is predicted the shower will peak on the overnight of Thursday, Aug. 11, to Friday, Aug. 12.
The meteor shower is best viewed away from city lights which will obscure all but the brightest meteors.
The last Perseid outburst happened in 2009, according to NASA.
The meteor shower will be unique because it will occur as the planet Earth plows through the debris field of the Swift-Tuttle comet, the source of the annual Perseid meteor shower. Before you look up at tonight’s sky, here’s what you should know about this impressive celestial event.
The Perseid shower may look like a pack of tiny comets crossing the night sky, but in actuality they are the result of the Earth crossing a trail of comet dust.
An August tradition, the Perseids are so named because the meteors appear to emanate from the constellation Perseus, the Medusa-killing hero of Greek mythology.
For those that do manage to catch a sight of them, the view will be twice as good this year as it normally is.
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If you’re looking for the ideal place to see the Perseids, you’ll need to move away from cloudy or light-polluted skies.
