Bart_Adrian's Blog

The annual Perseid Meteor Shower will reach its zenith this weekend, creating a meteor-a-minute spectacle in our northeastern night skies from about 10 p.m. Saturday, August 11 to daybreak on Monday, August 13. 

This year’s show could be exceptionally brilliant due to the current “new moon” phase, which means there will be no moonlight to spoil viewing.

Bob Bonadurer, Director of the Daniel M. Soref Planetarium, says the meteors will be easy to spot, even without the aid of a telescope. “Sky watchers can expect about one meteor every minute or two during peak times. All you have to do is get away from city lights, lay down and look up," he says.  

The Perseid meteors, sometimes called “shooting stars,” are actually dust grains in an ancient belt of comet debris that the Earth crosses in its annual trek around the sun. These particles hurtle into the Earth’s atmosphere at upwards of 132,000 m.p.h., heating to more than 3,000 degrees Fahrenheit, causing them to glow incandescently for a second or two before they vaporize.

"Spotting shooting stars is great fun, but a little frustrating,” Bonadurer says. “A friend or family member will go, 'look, there's one' and you'll go ‘What? Where?’ Meteors happen in a split second."

While the Perseids are already starting to ramp up in number, Bonadurer says the optimum time for viewing will be Monday, August 13 between 4 and 5 a.m. After this point the frequency of meteors will wane until about August 22, when an observer might see a Perseid once in an hour.