Skywatchers are getting set for the Perseid meteor shower, which this year peaks in the early morning hours on Friday and Saturday. National Aeronautics and Space Administration astronomers call the Perseids one of the best of the 30 or so annual meteor showers.
The Perseids are characterized by lots of fireballs—exceptionally bright meteors that leave streaks of light in the night sky as they burn up in the atmosphere. Under ideal viewing conditions, people can see 50 to 100 bright and colorful meteors an hour at the Perseids’ peak.
The best time to see the Perseids is two to three hours before sunrise, according to
Bill Cooke,
lead astronomer for NASA’s Meteoroid Environment Office at Marshall Space Flight Center in Huntsville, Ala. But this year, he added, light from a full moon will wash out fainter meteor streaks.
“The moon will cut the meteor rates down to a third or a quarter of what they are in a year without a full moon,” Dr. Cooke said. But even with the moonlight, he added, the Perseids promise to be “better than any meteor shower we’ve had so far this year.”
This month’s full moon is a so-called supermoon, meaning a full moon that coincides with our natural satellite’s closest approach to Earth in its elliptical orbit around our planet, according to NASA. Supermoons, which can occur several times a year, appear slightly bigger and brighter than other full moons.
Moonlight isn’t the only thing that can come between skywatchers and a dazzling sky show. Clouds can pose a problem, as can light pollution.
“Light pollution acts just like moonlight,” Dr. Cooke said in reference to artificial light from streetlights, buildings and other sources in populated areas.
“We had a lot more dark skies a century ago,” he said, adding that skywatchers today see fewer meteors than their ancestors.
The Perseids can be observed each summer worldwide but are best viewed in the Northern Hemisphere. The shower is named after the Perseus constellation, which lies in the region of the sky from which the meteors appear to emanate.
A meteor streaked across the sky during the Perseid meteor shower in Spruce Knob, W.Va., in 2021.
Photo:
Bill Ingalls/Associated Press
Though they are sometimes called shooting stars, meteors are actually fast-moving bits of ice, dust and rock that strike Earth’s atmosphere when our planet’s path around the sun takes us through the debris trail of a comet or asteroid. In the case of the Perseids, Earth is moving through debris left behind by Comet Swift-Tuttle, a large comet discovered in 1862.
Pieces of this comet’s debris—whose size can range from a grain of sand to a pea—hit the atmosphere at a speed that NASA pegs at 37 miles a second, or about 133,000 miles an hour. The heat generated by the intense friction between the debris and molecules in the atmosphere causes the bits to burn.
The Perseids’ peak occurs when Earth moves through the densest part of Swift-Tuttle’s debris trail.
SHARE YOUR THOUGHTS
How do you plan to watch the annual Perseid meteor shower? Join the conversation below.
To optimize your view of the Perseids, find a dark spot far from city lights that affords an unobstructed view of the sky during the predawn hours. But the meteors should be visible anytime between midnight and dawn, according to
Ashley King,
a research fellow at the Natural History Museum in London and an expert on meteors.
There is no need for binoculars or a telescope, as these instruments limit how much of the night sky you can see at once. If the moon is still visible, look in another direction—and be sure to give your eyes time to adjust to the darkness.
“It might take 10 to 15 minutes before you see your first one,” Dr. King said.
Write to Aylin Woodward at aylin.woodward@wsj.com
Copyright ©2022 Dow Jones & Company, Inc. All Rights Reserved. 87990cbe856818d5eddac44c7b1cdeb8