It's Your Last Chance to Catch the Dazzling Perseids Meteor Shower

CNET’s Jeff Carlson snapped a dazzling image of the sky show that is the Perseids meteor shower, shown above. It’s one of the best of the year, and if you can get outside Monday night, you might be able to catch a glimpse before it starts to fade. This year, the meteor shower started on July 14 and will continue through Sept. 1, though it tends to peak around the same three day span every year, and that peak is expected to end Aug. 13.

Perseids is one of the most popular and consistent celestial events to grace the nighttime skies, taking its name because the meteors appear from the general direction of the constellation Perseus. The meteors are produced by the Swift-Tuttle comet as Earth passes through the comet’s tail, burning up the various chunks of ice and rock in the atmosphere as it does so.

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During the peak, the sky will light up with anywhere from 50 to 75 meteors per hour according to the American Meteor Society — although NASA predicts that it could be up to 100 meteors per hour. The meteors, which are at first called meteoroids, travel at over 130,000 mph when they hit the Earth’s atmosphere, which is when the name changes to meteor. 

Perseids has already made an appearance in at least one meteor shower event this year. The Southern Delta Aquariids and Alpha Capricornids had their meteor shower peaks at the end of July and since Perseids is active during that time, it joined in to form a rare triple meteor shower. With both of those other meteor showers finishing up on Aug. 21 and Aug. 15, respectively, it’s not unlikely that one of the meteors you see during Perseids is actually from one of the other two meteor showers. 

Skygazers haven’t lacked reasons to go outside and marvel at the sky this year, from solar eclipses to multiple instances of aurora borealis. The show is far from over, with a planet parade happening in late August and a once-in-a-lifetime nova explosion that could happen any day now. 

Best time to see the Perseids meteor shower?

If you want the best chance to see a lot of meteors, between midnight and 5 a.m. is the best time. That is when it’ll be the darkest. For most of the northern hemisphere, the moon should also set sometime between midnight and 1:30 a.m., so you won’t have it drowning out the meteors with its own light.

Where is Perseids visible?

The majority of planet Earth will be able to witness the Perseids event. That includes the entire northern hemisphere and the northern half of the southern hemisphere. Any further south and you may run into some issues. 

In short, anywhere where the constellation Perseus is visible in the night sky will be able to see the Perseids meteor shower. 

If you’re wondering where that’ll be in the night sky where you are, a good tool to try is Time and Date. Enter your location and the date. After that, use the tool’s slider to change the time to around midnight or 1 a.m. and then scan around the sky for Perseus. Then simply look in that direction on the prescribed dates. For example, in central Ohio, Perseus will be along the horizon in the northeastern part of the sky. 

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Sky Tonight (Android, iOS) is another good mobile app for this purpose. Enter your location and fast forward to Aug. 11-13. From there, find Perseus in the sky and note the direction and how close it is to the horizon. Look in that direction on the given nights to see meteors. 

Will I need any special tools to see Perseids?

No. The meteor shower is bright enough and consistent enough that you should be able to see it with the naked eye when gazing upon the night sky. Binoculars can help, but telescope users run the risk of missing meteors due to being focused on too small a patch in the sky. Those looking to take pictures of the event will be able to see the meteors just fine with a smartphone camera or a more professional camera.

Follow the standard rules for looking at things in the night sky. You’ll want to get as far away from light pollution as possible and, of course, the weather will be a factor as well. The moon shouldn’t be an issue as the American Meteor Society says that the moon should be either low or below the horizon by the time the cosmic fireworks start. 

Time Magazine estimates that suburbanites will see approximately 10 per hour if they’re lucky while people in the big cities may not see any at all. So, the closer to the city you are, the better an idea it is to take a drive out of town to see the shower. 

What causes the Perseids meteor shower?

The Swift-Tuttle comet orbits around the sun once every 48,700 days, which translates to 133⅓  years. The comet is one of the larger ones in our solar system with a radius of 16 miles, which NASA says is nearly twice the estimated size of the object that allegedly killed the dinosaurs. 

As the comet orbits the sun, it leaves behind a tail of dust, ice and debris. About once a year, Earth’s orbit goes right through that tail, blazing a trail through the comet’s debris. The pieces of debris that wind up burning up in the Earth’s atmosphere are called meteors, and the debris field Earth flies through is referred to as Perseids. 

The American Meteor Society has a neat graphic that shows how it all works. Swift-Tuttle has a massive debris field that it consistently flies through and Earth’s orbit takes us right through at around the same time every year like clockwork.