Perseid meteor shower peaks tonight

“This year’s Perseid meteor shower peaks on August 12 and 13th”, says Bill Cooke of NASA’s Meteoroid Environment Office.

The Annual Perseid meteor shower will peak over the next three days.

The sky show is pieces of comet Swift-Tuttle hitting Earth’s atmosphere at more than 133,000 miles per hour and burning up.

The shower will light up the sky as dust particles heat up as they enter the Earth’s atmosphere, according to University of Washington’s Astronomy Department. “Plus, this shower can be enjoyed during summer’s warmth”, the article stated, “unlike the often nippy nights during the Leonids of November or Geminids of December”. Look away from the constellations to spot the meteors streaking across the sky.

Where is your favorite place to stargaze in Des Moines?

The best time to view a meteor shower is early in the morning, a few hours before sunrise when the sky is darkest.

“The best thing is you don’t need a telescope”, he added. This is what causes the meteor showers and around 2 a.m. early Thursday morning on August 13th the meteor shower will be at its peak with anywhere from 100 to 150 meteors an hour.

The major meteor shower will be visible in the Northern Hemisphere. These shooting stars are more rare than the midnight variety, but tend to be more colorful and spectacular if you’re lucky enough to see one hugging the horizon as it flares out. It last coincided with a new moon in 2007.

Prof Bailey predicted the Perseids would this year produce an outburst of activity around 7.40pm BST on August 12, while it was still light, but the stars could be seen long after dark.

“If you only watch on the night of maximum there is a chance you will see nothing this year if it is cloudy, whereas, if you go out every night this week and weekend you will nearly certainly see some Perseids and beat the weather statistics”.

One fun fact about meteors is that majority are debris from comets.