It’s that time of summer to watch the most anticipated meteor shower of the year: the dazzling display known as the Perseids.
Streams of light and colour will travel across the sky while explosions of fireballs linger, leaving behind even brighter streaks than the meteor trails from the Perseids passing through the atmosphere.
Visible annually from mid-July to Sept. 1, the Perseid meteor shower is set to peak between Sunday and before dawn Monday. Up to 100 meteors are expected per hour, moving at a speed of 133,200 miles per hour (214,365 kilometres per hour).
Bill Cooke, head of NASA’s Meteoroid Environment Office, described the Perseids as the richest meteor shower of the year because of the bright fireballs. It’s “the closest thing each year to a celestial fireworks display,” Cooke said.
Unusually bright meteors, fireballs can surpass one meter (3.3 feet) in diameter and are brighter than Venus — according to NASA and Cooke. Venus is one of the most luminous objects in the night sky.
These fireballs are “brighter than any star or planet in the sky,” said Robert Lunsford, the fireball report coordinator for the American Meteor Society. Like human-made fireworks, fireballs “tend to leave persistent streaks in the sky that will look like smoke and slowly dissipate over a few seconds after the meteor has gone,” Lunsford said.
This year is optimal for watching the shower because moonlight conditions will not wash out faint meteors, allowing viewers to observe both bright and dim ones, Cooke said. “Get in the entire shower this year,” he said, pointing out that last year’s moonlight conditions “kind of shut down the show” and obscured dim meteors.
During the peak of the shower, the moon will be 50 per cent illuminated and will set around midnight — ideal conditions for meteor watching with dark skies contrasting with the balls of light.
“There are meteor showers going all the time, but again, they’re so weak, most people wouldn’t even notice they’re happening,” Cooke said. (In a rare instance last month, however, observers spotted a fireball meteor in broad daylight in parts of the Northeast.)
“This is your best opportunity to see these celestial fireworks, and what they tell us is exactly when we pass through certain orbits of the comet (Swift-Tuttle) that produced these meteors,” Lunsford said. “And besides, it’s kind of fun … like having another Fourth of July.”
In 1865, Italian astronomer Giovanni Schiaparelli discovered that the Perseids resulted from Earth passing through debris trails originally released by the comet Swift-Tuttle.
The meteor shower’s name comes from the location in the sky that it appears to originate from — what’s called the radiant — near the constellation Perseus. The constellation can be identified with a stargazing app, which can help viewers pinpoint the shower’s starting point.
How to view the Perseids
NASA’s Cooke recommends four tips for optimal viewing. You don’t need instruments such as a telescope or binoculars, but find the darkest sky you can without light pollution. If you can, lie flat on your back and look straight up, taking in as much sky as possible. Give your eyes 30 to 45 minutes to adapt to the dark. “Don’t look at your cell phone, because that screen ruins your night vision, and it takes your eyes off the sky,” Cooke said.
Lunsford suggested bringing a comfortable chair so you can lie back and enjoy the scene, taking in as much sky in your view. Avoiding sources of light in your viewing location will allow you to see more meteors since most of them are faint, Lunsford said. Otherwise, you will only spot the brightest ones.
The best time to view the shower is after midnight around 2 a.m., when the source of the meteors will be the highest in the northeastern sky, both experts said. “Mother Nature doesn’t respect people’s sleep,” Cooke joked.
Any sky-gazer can see the shower in the Northern Hemisphere, but “the maximum (peak) will be later so the best place to see (it) is in the middle of the Pacific Ocean, Hawaii,” Lunsford said. The Perseids are not visible in Antarctica because the radiant never rises in the view of the sky there, he added.
Referring to John Denver’s 1970s hit “Rocky Mountain High” with the lyrics of “I’ve seen it rainin’ fire in the sky,” Cooke said, “He’s talking about the Perseids. He saw them from Colorado.
“So they’re good enough to be inserted into a song (and) so that’s good enough reason for me to go outside.”
Remaining meteor showers
Here are upcoming meteor showers, with the dates they are expected to peak:
- Draconids: Oct. 7-8
- Orionids: Oct. 21-22
- Southern Taurids: Nov. 4-5
- Northern Taurids: Nov.11-12
- Leonids: Nov. 17-18
- Geminids: Dec. 13-14
- Ursids: Dec. 21-22