The Perseid meteor shower, considered among the most reliable and best-known meteor showers, is expected to peak after midnight tonight and into Tuesday morning. A nearly full moon early Tuesday morning will make the sky somewhat brighter than normal, and some of the fainter meteors won’t be visible. So instead of roughly 60 an hour, as there have been in past years, there might be 20 or 30 shooting stars an hour this year, experts say.
The best way to watch the astronomical fireworks is to go outside, turn the lights off and look for a broad patch of sky, away from trees. Face northeast. The Perseid meteor shower, first documented by Chinese astronomers in 36 A.D., is named because the shooting stars seem to come from the direction of Perseus, a large constellation in the northern sky. The shower occurs when the Earth, as it orbits the sun, crosses over a trail of dust, dirt and other debris from a comet, Swift-Tuttle, which takes 133 years to orbit the sun. The debris is left behind the comet and creates a giant oval that extends from beyond Pluto to around the sun. As Earth passes through the celestial debris every year, some of those tiny bits of sand, metal and rock burn up as they come into contact with Earth’s atmosphere, creating the flashing trails across the night sky. According to NASA, Perseid meteors are moving at 132,000 miles per hour. Perseid meteors pose no danger to Earth, according to NASA. Most burn up 50 miles above the planet.
