
Perseids Meteor Shower Live Tracker: Peak Time, Locations to See Shower Tonight
What to Know:
The Perseid meteor shower peaks overnight August 12–13, with best viewing between 2 a.m. and 4 a.m. local time.
The Virtual Telescope Project will host a free livestream starting at 5 p.m. EDT on August 12, featuring real-time views and expert commentary.
The shower originates from debris left by Comet Swift-Tuttle and appears to radiate from the constellation Perseus in the northeastern sky.
A waning gibbous moon, 86% illuminated, may obscure fainter meteors, but bright fireballs should still be visible.
No equipment is needed — just a dark sky location, patience, and time for your eyes to adjust.
The Perseids are active from July 17 to August 23, but the peak nights offer the most dramatic views.
Stay with Newsweek for the latest.

Try Our AI Features
Explore what Daily8 AI can do for you:
Comments
No comments yet...
Related Articles
Yahoo
2 hours ago
- Yahoo
Was it a plane? Was it a UFO? Bright light over Quebec captivates stargazers
With eyes turned to the skies, stargazers taking in the Perseid meteor shower on Tuesday night witnessed something out of this world. In a publication on Facebook, the Astrolab du parc national du Mont-Mégantic in Quebec's Eastern Townships described it as "a magnificent and luminous spiral streaking across the sky at around 10:40 p.m." Several people in the Montreal area also witnessed the strange phenomenon and reached out to CBC News describing a bright light enveloped by a fuzzy halo and warning of a UFO sighting. While it was certainly unusual, it wasn't really an unidentified flying object, but more likely the result of a rocket launch, according to the Astrolab. "It was in all likelihood the second stage of an Ariane 6 rocket which was igniting its engine in order to de-orbit itself after having released the European satellite Metop-SGA1 in a polar orbit," the Facebook post explained. The European Space Agency confirmed on its website that a weather satellite was launched Tuesday evening at 9:37 p.m. local time, from the European spaceport in Kourou, French Guiana — an overseas department of France located in South America. The new satellite is meant to usher in "a new era of weather and climate monitoring from polar orbit." WATCH | What was that bright object flying in the sky over Quebec: According to astrophysicist Robert Lamontagne, the rocket's orbit is what allowed for the spectacle to be visible in Quebec. Most of the time rocket launches are on an equatorial orbit and so will be visible near the equator, he said. In a polar orbit, the rocket has to go around the earth circling each pole of the planet. "So the the trajectory of that the rocket made it so that from our latitude it could be seen in Montreal or the south of Quebec," he said. But to witness the phenomena, other factors also need to align, according to Lamontagne, including the time of launch and the altitude reached by the rocket. "From our point of view, we were in the dark, the sun was low below the horizon, but the rocket itself was so high that it was still lit by the by the sun," he said. And as the second stage of the rocket re-entered the earth's atmosphere, he said, "it was spinning a little bit, there was exhaust gases coming out from it and that's what people saw in the sky." A spokesperson for the Canadian Space Agency told CBC News that many observers captured video of the event, with the agency confirming it was the ESA's Ariane 6 rocket.
Yahoo
6 hours ago
- Yahoo
Stargazers dazzled as spirals of light appear in night sky
Stargazers on the lookout for the Perseid meteor shower were treated to an extra nighttime spectacular on Tuesday night as spirals appeared in the sky along the East Coast. The unusual light show -- which appeared to show circling lights in the heavens -- was on display after multiple rocket launches. MORE: SpaceX loses another Starship in latest launch, with debris seen streaking across the sky Videos began circulating online in several states, including Maryland, New York, New Jersey, Tennessee, Illinois, Ohio and Nebraska, after 9 p.m. ET Tuesday, social media posts show. ABC Philadelphia station WPVI began receiving calls and messages from viewers around 10:30 p.m. to report the phenomenon, the station reported. The spiraling lights seemed to appear "out of nowhere," Blake Brown, who witnessed the dazzling display from Algonquin, Illinois, while watching for the meteor shower, told ABC News. MORE: Rare wave-shaped clouds hovering over Virginia skyline caught on camera The majority of the spiraling light sightings likely stemmed from the launch of Ariane 6, said Jonathan C. McDowell, an astrophysicist for the Harvard-Smithsonian Center for Astrophysics. That rocket lifted off from the Guiana Space Centre at Europe's Spaceport in Kourou, French Guiana, at about 8:37 p.m. ET, according to Eumetsat, a European operational satellite agency for monitoring weather. Ariane 6, about 196-feet tall, has the ability to launch both heavy and light payloads for applications such as Earth observation, telecommunication, meteorology, science and navigation, according to the European Space Agency. The appearance of the spirals in the sky was likely the result of the upper stage of the rocket tumbling as it underwent a disposal rocket firing at the end of the launch, McDowell told ABC News. MORE: Falling space debris is increasingly threatening airplanes, researchers say The spiral light occurs when reflection from sunlight interacts with the frozen plume of fuel from the exhaust of rockets. "It's a nice, perfect spiral because it's way out in space with no air to distort the shape," McDowell said. Tuesday's launch, which brought a weather satellite to orbit, is the third-ever mission for the powerful rocket, according to Another rocket, the Vulcan Centaur Rocket, successfully lifted off from the Cape Canaveral Space Force Station in Florida at 8:56 p.m. ET, according to the United Launch Alliance. The 202-foot rocket was carrying a pair of experimental navigation satellites on behalf of the United States Space Force's first-ever mission, according to "The Vulcan launched east and went to a high orbit, and was still coasting upward [without the rocket firing] when the spiral was seen," McDowell said. "If people in Florida saw something at 9:37, 9:45 pm ET, that could have been the Vulcan."

6 hours ago
Stargazers dazzled as spirals of light appear in night sky
Stargazers on the lookout for the Perseid meteor shower were treated to an extra nighttime spectacular on Tuesday night as spirals appeared in the sky along the East Coast. The unusual light show -- which appeared to show circling lights in the heavens -- was on display after multiple rocket launches. Videos began circulating online in several states, including Maryland, New York, New Jersey, Tennessee, Illinois, Ohio and Nebraska, after 9 p.m. ET Tuesday, social media posts show. ABC Philadelphia station WPVI began receiving calls and messages from viewers around 10:30 p.m. to report the phenomenon, the station reported. The spiraling lights seemed to appear "out of nowhere," Blake Brown, who witnessed the dazzling display from Algonquin, Illinois, while watching for the meteor shower, told ABC News. The majority of the spiraling light sightings likely stemmed from the launch of Ariane 6, said Jonathan C. McDowell, an astrophysicist for the Harvard-Smithsonian Center for Astrophysics. That rocket lifted off from the Guiana Space Centre at Europe's Spaceport in Kourou, French Guiana, at about 8:37 p.m. ET, according to Eumetsat, a European operational satellite agency for monitoring weather. Ariane 6, about 196-feet tall, has the ability to launch both heavy and light payloads for applications such as Earth observation, telecommunication, meteorology, science and navigation, according to the European Space Agency. The appearance of the spirals in the sky was likely the result of the upper stage of the rocket tumbling as it underwent a disposal rocket firing at the end of the launch, McDowell told ABC News. The spiral light occurs when reflection from sunlight interacts with the frozen plume of fuel from the exhaust of rockets. "It's a nice, perfect spiral because it's way out in space with no air to distort the shape," McDowell said. Tuesday's launch, which brought a weather satellite to orbit, is the third-ever mission for the powerful rocket, according to Another rocket, the Vulcan Centaur Rocket, successfully lifted off from the Cape Canaveral Space Force Station in Florida at 8:56 p.m. ET, according to the United Launch Alliance. The 202-foot rocket was carrying a pair of experimental navigation satellites on behalf of the United States Space Force's first-ever mission, according to "The Vulcan launched east and went to a high orbit, and was still coasting upward [without the rocket firing] when the spiral was seen," McDowell said. "If people in Florida saw something at 9:37, 9:45 pm ET, that could have been the Vulcan."