The Best Meteor Shower of the Year Peaks Tonight

The weather forecast looks good for Perseid viewing, with mostly clear skies and overnight lows in the lower 60s early Thursday morning.

Stargazers who intend to watch the Perseid meteor shower on Thursday will have to rise early.

What is the Perseids Meteor Shower?

Westbrook says the Perseids are associated with the Swift-Tuttle comet, a comet which orbits the sun once every 133 years. When the tiny chunks of rock crash through the Earth’s atmosphere and burn up, they leave trails of light that we see as meteors. Since the meteors appear to be coming from the northeast you might want to drive in that direction from town putting the lights behind you. The major meteor shower will be visible all over the Northern Hemisphere.

You could see as many as 50 meteors an hour at the peak, said Patrick Young, an associate professor at Arizona State University’s School of Earth and Space Exploration.

However, as Earth continues to pass through the debris train of Comet Swift-Tuttle, the peak of the meteor shower this week will now see a streak in the skies around every MINUTE.

If all else fails, NASA TV and NASA’s UStream channel will host a live show with meteor science experts from Wednesday night into Thursday morning. The Perseids are named after the constellation Perseus because that is where the meteors seem to originate from when looking up at the sky. During peak, meteor rates get as high as 100 per hour.

The Perseid meteor shower is visible to the naked eye so you won’t need any binoculars or special equipment, just a dark spot.

Romantic, right? If you can, Dundee said, head out away from the city lights any night starting tonight through this weekend.