The annual Perseid meteor shower peaks tonight and early Friday morning, and it is going to be quite the show!
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“Even in the Seattle area, along I-5, you’ll still be able to see a shooting star or two”, Palmer said.
“Forecasters are predicting a Perseid outburst this year with double normal rates on the night of August 11-12”, said Bill Cooke with NASA’s Meteoroid Environments Office in Huntsville, Alabama. For this year, Jupiter’s gravitational pull will tug the Perseids closer to earth, making them more visible than usual.
Every Perseid meteor is a tiny piece of the Comet Swift-Tuttle that orbits the sun every 133 years. Perseid meteors travel at the blistering speed of 132,000 miles per hour (59 kilometers per second) – that’s 500 times faster than the fastest vehicle in the world. As is often the case with meteor showers, the best viewing is in the pre-dawn hours, though some can also be seen before midnight, grazing the Earth’s atmosphere to produce long bright tails and sometimes fireballs.
During the shower, the meteors emanate from the part of the sky that contains that constellation.
I’ve never heard of a Perseid meteor shower before? Beginning at 10 p.m. ET Thursday, NASA will kick off an overnight livestream video. How much do you know about the celestial light show? That will allow for double the normal rate of meteors. The particles were left behind by a comet called Swift-Tuttle. That heating creates the light we see as the meteor travels across the sky. You don’t need to look at anything in particular, but lying on your back is the best way to take in the view of the sky.
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Most meteors burn up in our sky around 50 miles above the Earth’s surface. The stars won’t be constant, so if you can’t see anything initially then keeping looking up and let your eyes adjust, and wait.
