Remember the excitement of gazing across the night sky, following the glittery trajectory of a shooting star? Prepare to view hundreds of them over five days next month, during the Perseid meteor shower. In the early morning hours of Friday, August 9, through Wednesday, August 14, 2013, view this prolific meteor shower.
The maximum of the Perseid activity is expected during early morning of the Monday, August 12. During the peak, the rate of meteors will reach 60 or more per hour. One meteor streak per minute will offer lots of active viewing.
The visible path of a meteoroid that enters Earth’s atmosphere is called a meteor, or colloquially a “shooting star” or “falling star.” It is followed by a trail of glowing gases. A meteor shower is a celestial event in which a number of meteors are observed to radiate from one point in the night sky. These meteors are caused by streams of cosmic debris, called meteoroids, entering Earth’s atmosphere at extremely high speeds on parallel trajectories. Most meteors are smaller than a grain of sand, so almost all of them disintegrate and never hit the Earth’s surface.
They can be seen all across the sky, but because of the path of Swift-Tuttle comet’s orbit, Perseids are primarily visible in the northern hemisphere. As with all meteor showers, the rate is greatest in the pre-dawn hours, since the side of the Earth nearest to turning into the sun scoops up more meteors as the Earth moves through space.