Perseid Meteors

StarDate

One of the best-known meteor showers will be at its best the next couple of nights. Unfortunately, the gibbous Moon will be in the sky during the best hours for meteor watching. That will spoil the view of all but the brightest meteors.

Perseid meteors are spawned by Comet Swift-Tuttle. The comet orbits the Sun once every 133 years or so. As it plies the interplanetary space lanes, it sheds tiny bits of rock and dust. The grains spread along the comet’s path. Earth flies through this path every August. The particles ram into the atmosphere at more than 130,000 miles per hour. They heat the air in front of them to thousands of degrees, forming the glowing streaks known as “shooting stars.”

Swift-Tuttle is an especially big comet – about 16 miles in diameter. And its orbit sometimes brings it close to Earth. In August of 2126, for example, it’ll pass just 14 million miles away. And about 900 years later, it’ll miss by just one million miles.

It’s hard to project the comet’s orbit more than a few thousand years into the future. So it’s possible that it could someday hit Earth – a collision that would wipe out most of the life on our fragile planet.

Perseid meteors are best seen between midnight and dawn. Find a safe viewing site away from city lights, block out the Moon as much as you can, and scan the sky for the celestial fireworks.

Script by Damond Benningfield