Get ready for one of the most brilliant stellar displays of the year as the Perseid meteor shower peaks later this week. On August 11, as a result of cosmic interference from Jupiter’s gravity, astronomers predict we could see 200 meteors an hour.
The Perseid meteors begin as dust particles that hit the Earth’s atmosphere at 132,000 miles per hour, vaporising from friction with the air and leaving behind streaks of light – meteors.
The particles were born in a periodic comet, known as Swift-Tuttle. The meteors can be seen every year when the Earth passes through a cloud of the comet’s debris, and the fragments were left behind from the last time the comet was close to Earth in 1992.
However, this year Jupiter’s gravity has interfered and nudged Swift-Tuttle’s debris stream closer to our planet. Instead of just a meteor shower we should be witnessing a meteor outburst, with around 150 to 200 meteors in the sky per hour. The last time this happened was in 2009.
For the best way to see this year’s outburst, the suggested peak time is overnight on the 11-12 August, at around 3am BST. Nasa advises you go to an open space, such as a park, a field or on the coast, and avoid lots of light pollution in order to get the best view.
Your eyes should take around 45 minutes to adjust to the darkness so give yourself enough time to settle in to your surroundings before the shower starts. And the best way to catch the meteors? Simply lie on your back and look straight up at the sky.
The meteors get their name because they appear to come from a point in the constellation of Perseus. The Perseid shower is known as one of the biggest meteor shows annually because it has such a consistently high rate of meteors and produces a higher percentage of bright ones than most showers.
If you are in area with too much light pollution or it is a cloudy night, or you just want to stay in bed, all is not lost. Nasa will live stream the Perseid meteor shower on Ustream overnight on August 11-12 and August 12-13, beginning at 3am BST.
This article was originally published by WIRED UK
