The Perseid meteor shower — the most visible meteor shower of the year — peaks Tuesday night into Wednesday.
This meteor shower comes every year, beginning in July and lasting through most of August. So grab the kids, head out after dark, and if there’s not cloud cover or a lot of outdoor lighting, you should be able to see meteors — or so-called shooting stars — streaking across the sky.
Kelly Beatty, senior editor at Sky & Telescope and our longtime advisor on all things stellar, gives us his guide to the skies.
4 questions with Kelly Beatty
What are the Perseids?
“ Historically, Catholics in England and Germany thought these were the tears, the burning tears of St. Lawrence, who was martyred on Aug. 10 in the year 258.
“And it later came to be realized that these are bits of comet that have been shed by a comet called Swift Tuttle. That comet takes 133 years to go around the sun. The comet’s nowhere nearby, but along its orbit is a just a ribbon of debris that it’s left behind. And every August at this time, we plow through that debris and those little particles hit our atmosphere at 37 miles a second. And that’s what causes those brief flashes of light.”
Why is the meteor shower peaking tonight?
“ So this river of debris is not very wide, and so only when the Earth is passing through it do we get a pulse. Now we see shooting stars every night. If it’s a clear, dark night, you can see four, five, six an hour, just because, not to mention dozens of Starlink satellites, but we won’t go there.
“But at this time, there are certain times of year when Earth crosses the paths of comets. In August, it’s the Perseid. In November, it’s the Leonids. In December, it’s the Geminids. And so you’re hearing constellations here. These are the places in the sky that these meteors appear to radiate from.
“If you could follow their trails back now, you can see them anywhere in the sky. There’s no particular best way to look. Really, the best thing to do is look where your sky is darkest.”
Where’s the best place to look?
“ Usually it’s straight up. That’s usually the darkest part of your sky. Again, the meteors can appear anywhere in the sky.
“We have additional competition this year from the moon, which is almost full. It’s going to be rising tonight about an hour after sunset. So, you know, it’s going to wash out the faintest of these meteors, but the brightest ones will still show through. And this shower tends to have a lot of fireballs. So just relax, look up, and I would expect maybe one every five to 10 minutes would be a good night for you.”
And you can see Jupiter and Venus too?
“ You can before dawn. They’re very close together in the sky, about a finger’s width apart. They’re passing each other in the sky, and it’s a fantastic view. The two brightest planets.”
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Julia Corcoran produced and edited this interview for broadcast with Michael Scotto. Allison Hagan adapted it for the web.
This article was originally published on WBUR.org.
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