It鈥檚 August and that means the hottest show in the night sky, the Perseid meteor shower, will make it annual appearance 鈥� peaking in the pre-dawn hours tonight through Aug. 13.
鈥淭his year should be a rather impressive one. Some of the forecasts are saying that this is going to be a large burst of meteors so you could see quite a few," said Matt Benjamin, a planetary scientist and education program manager at CU Boulder鈥檚 Fiske Planetarium. "The Perseid are a pretty consistent meteor shower but it鈥檚 the moon that really makes it either a good or bad show depending on the year. And the moon phase should be quite beneficial to seeing these meteors. The moon will not be full and therefore you shouldn鈥檛 see much of the moonlight at all. It should be a really good meteor shower.鈥�
The Perseid meteor shower happens when the Earth passes through the debris field of the Comet Swift-Tuttle. While Earth typically grazes the edge of the comet debris, this year Jupiter's gravity has tugged some streams of the comet鈥檚 material closer to Earth.
鈥淭he Perseid meteor is a fantastic meteor shower," Benjamin said. "It鈥檚 a great meteor shower because of the comet that is creating the debris that Earth is moving through. And this comet left a fair amount of debris along its path and Earth is thus going through this dense debris. So that then leads to a lot of meteors and shooting stars."
Viewing tips:
- Look toward the constellation Perseus in听the northeastern sky听
- The meteor shower will be active between midnight and dawn, often producing 50 to 100 meteors per hour in a dark sky
- For best viewing get away from city lights
