August Meteor Shower Will Be ‘A Great Show’
The annual Perseid meteor shower is expected to put on a great show this year, peaking in mid-August with a display of dozens of shooting stars each hour.
The Moon will be out of the way, leaving dark skies for good viewing as Earth plunges through an ancient stream of comet debris. Little bits, most no larger than sand grains, will vaporize in Earth’s atmosphere, creating sometimes-dramatic “shooting stars.”
“It’s going to be a great show,” said Bill Cooke of NASA’s Meteoroid Environment Office at the Marshall Space Flight Center in Alabama. “The Moon is new on August 12, which means no moonlight, dark skies and plenty of meteors.” This year the Perseid meteor shower could deliver one or two visible streaks every minute during peak times, Cooke said in a statement yesterday. Urban skywatchers will see fewer due to local light pollution.
The meteors in this shower all appear to emanate from the constellation Perseus. The best times to watch will be late night Aug. 12 through dawn Aug. 13.
“The August Perseids are among the strongest of the readily observed annual meteor showers, and at maximum activity nominally yield 90 or 100 meteors per hour,” said Joe Rao, SPACE.com’s Skywatching columnist. “However, observers with exceptional skies often record even larger numbers.”