The Perseid meteor shower is set to light up the night sky this week. It’s one of the best meteor showers of the year and will peak from Monday night, August 12, to Tuesday morning, August 13.
Dr. Ed Bloomer, a senior astronomer at the Royal Observatory Greenwich, mentioned that the meteors should be visible a couple of days before and after the peak. “The Perseids should give good viewing a couple of days either side, with local weather and light conditions probably more significant factors than the precise mathematical peak,” he said.
Stargazers, look up! It’s time for the Perseid meteor shower. Head out the night of Aug. 11 and before dawn on Aug. 12 for a chance to see some celestial fireworks. https://t.co/lWKxd8inbD pic.twitter.com/KlFzC8Eul3
— NASA (@NASA) August 9, 2024
The meteors appear to come from between the constellations Camelopardalis and Perseus. Bloomer suggested, “Perseus is rising in the north-east as the sun’s going down, and so you want to look maybe more over towards the east.” He added that it’s better to view them out of the corner of your eye.
This meteor shower happens because Earth moves through debris left behind by comet 109P/Swift-Tuttle. “When the fragments – often no bigger than a grain of sand – hit the atmosphere, the air in front of them becomes compressed, generating heat and causing the fragments to burn up,” Bloomer explained. This creates the bright streaks we see in the sky.
Bloomer also mentioned that Swift-Tuttle has a long orbit around the Sun, and Earth crashes into its debris each year. “So Swift-Tuttle makes its orbit, but the Earth then essentially crashes into that path year after year,” he said.
To see the Perseids best, go outside at night to a dark area, away from street lights, and avoid looking at your phone. Bloomer noted, “You might get lucky and see a fireball, [that’s] a bit of debris about the size of your fist coming through the atmosphere – that can go [on] for five, 10 seconds. You might even see it break up, and that’s pretty special.” Most meteors will be short flashes.
He suggested that watching with friends can be fun, but it’s a personal experience. “It’s not fireworks,” Bloomer said. “But you’re sort of seeing the mechanics of the solar system at work, which is quite an interesting thing.”
