Perseid meteors before dawn August 12 and 13
Meteor photo by Vic Winter at ICSTARS. Used with permission.
Monday, August 11, 2008
It’s time again for the Perseid meteor shower, often the best meteor shower of the year – definitely a sky highlight of our northern hemisphere summer.
In Europe and North America, the greatest numbers of Perseids are expected in the wee hours before dawn tomorrow morning. In Asia, the forecast calls for the Perseids to peak before dawn on Wednesday. At its peak, the Perseids often produce 60 meteors per hour.
Keep in mind, though, that meteor showers are notorious for waylaying the best-laid sky forecasts. Predicting the time of a meteor shower’s peak and its intensity is as much art as science.
Or you might say that meteor showers are like sporting events, in that the element of uncertainty and surprise is always at play. Even a shower as dependable as the Perseids can exceed or fall short of expectation. The Perseid shower occasionally displays multiple peaks and often tantalizes with lags and spurts. Or you might experience lulls in the shower.
These Perseid meteors fly in August because that’s when our planet Earth crosses the orbital path of Comet Swift-Tuttle. Even though this comet is now moving in the outer solar system, the stream of rubble trailing Swift-Tuttle extends for hundreds of millions of kilometers in space.
This comet debris vaporizing in Earth’s atmosphere will light up the heavens with streaking Perseid meteors tonight.
The shower peaks when we pass through the thickest clump of comet dust.
The Perseid shower should be at its best tonight and tomorrow night. The optimal viewing window is after moonset and before dawn on Tuesday and Wednesday mornings.
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