How to see the Perseid Meteor Shower
When night falls during this time, eyes are drawn to the night sky to see the annual Perseid Meteor Shower. This is usually considered one of the best meteor showers of the year, sometimes featuring numerous meteors. Some of these meteors appear with long streaks of light behind them. Others appear very bright and have different colors. These are called "fireballs."
The Perseids started becoming possible to see on July 17th and will be visible through August 23rd. During this month long display it is possible to see a meteor here or there. The peak on August 12th and 13th will have the possibility to see 25 per hour. The problem with the peak of this year's Perseid Meteor Shower is that it will occur with a nearly full Moon. The full Moon is the morning of August 9th, so it will still be very bright in the night sky, washing out some of the meteors.
That will be a bit of a problem, but to get the best views, you will still want to find a dark place with a good view of the night sky. It is best to then look for the radiant of the meteor shower. A radiant is where the meteors seem to originate, and for the Perseid Meteor Shower that is the constellation Perseus. They usually are most active between 11pm and dawn.
The Perseid Meteor Shower is caused by debris left behind by a comet named 109P/Swift-Tuttle. NASA says this 16-mile-wide comet takes 133 years to orbit the Sun. The debris left behind from that comet is moving at 37 miles per second. If you do the math, that is 133,200 miles per hour. When even tiny pieces of debris slams into Earth's atmosphere at that speed, it creates a lot of friction and A LOT of heat. That causes the debris to burn up, creating a light streak in the night sky!
Like I said, we will be competing with moonlight, but if there are fireballs you won't want to miss the Perseid Meteor Shower.
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