If you have clear skies this week, be sure to look up: It's time for one of the best meteor showers of the year: the Perseids. While you can see a meteor on any given night — with patience and dark skies — strong meteor showers provide a rare chance to see dozens an hour. Almost each month we have what are considered major meteor showers, where sky-watchers can see anywhere from several meteors an hour under ideal conditions, to 100 or more.
The Perseid meteor shower is considered one of the best, both because of the time of year — warm weather, less cloud-cover — and the fact that onlookers can see roughly 100 meteors an hour at its peak, but only under perfect, dark skies. This year, the peak occurs on the night of Aug. 11-12.
We get these showers as Earth plows through material left over from comets or asteroids that orbit the sun. As we pass through these trails, the small particles of dust and rocks burn up through our atmosphere, producing beautiful, yet fleeting, streaks in the sky. In this case, comet 109/P Swift-Tuttle.
Try this interactive map showing how Earth passes through the meteor shower: Some years the moon interferes with all but the brightest meteors, but not this year. The moon will only be a quarter full and will set after 1 a.m.
local time. Megaconstellations of satellites are burning up in our atmosphere. That could have consequences NASA releases new 'Penguin and Egg' image from James Webb Space Telescope "The moon is good this year.
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