The Perseid meteor shower, an annual celestial event, will be visible in night skies throughout Colorado in early August.
The natural fireworks will be most visible in areas away from city lights and will peak before dawn in the early morning hours of Aug. 13, according to experts at the University of Colorado at Boulder's Fiske Planetarium.
Viewing is best where the sky is darkest. People also should avoid using binoculars and telescopes, which narrow the field of vision, according to Francisco Salas, program supervisor at CU-Boulder's Fiske Planetarium.
"As usual, you should be able to see some meteors by going outside almost anywhere where you have a clear and fairly dark sky," Salas said. "If you're more adventurous, take a drive to a darker site, or go camping on Tuesday night so you can rise early to see the meteors on Wednesday morning."
This year a full moon also will affect viewing by adding extra light "pollution" to the night sky, limiting the viewing of some meteors, especially the dim ones, according to Salas.
The Perseid meteor shower, which occurs every August, is named for the Perseus constellation from which the meteors, or shooting stars, appear to radiate.
Meteor showers occur when the Earth crosses the path of a comet, sweeping through debris left behind along the orbit. Millions of chunks of ice and dust make up the tail of a comet. These chunks of debris might be as small as a pea and travel through the solar system at more than 36,000 miles per hour.
The Perseid meteor shower is caused by the Earth passing through the tail of Comet Swift-Tuttle, which is in orbit around the sun. The chunks of space junk that make up the tail are only seen as meteors when they get caught in Earth's gravity and burn up in the atmosphere, Salas said.
Another popular meteor shower is the Leonid, which occurs each year in November.