If you want to take a break from the stress of politics and life, stick your head outside some night this week and look up. Tuesday and Wednesday mark the peak of the annual Perseid meteor shower and this year’s show may be the most spectacular in a decade.
We can thank a short period comet called Swift-Tuttle for this annual summer display. It circles the sun once every 133 years in a highly eccentric orbit, trailing gas and dust behind. The debris includes tiny flakes of rocky minerals and an occasional grain of metal. When one of those grains hits our atmosphere, at over 30 miles per second, it lights up and etches a fine, brilliant line across the night sky. Plus there’s always a few bigger chunks the size of a grape or baseball mixed in with the smaller junk, and while that may not sound very big, a baseball-sized space-rock is a respectable monster in the meteor community! Those are the ones that can split the sky in two with a multi-hued blaze of light and leave behind a twisting trail of plasma that glows for several minutes.
It turns out that Jupiter can tug around on this cometary debris, forming regions that are either rarer or denser than usual. This year, some models suggest we may plow through one of the densest regions, producing short periods of intense activity, what astronomers call a meteor outburst:
This outburst should occur on the night of Aug. 11 and 12. It’s not clear if it will happen, or when—these things are pretty difficult to predict—so I advise you go out shortly before midnight and stay out as long as you can. If you miss it, don’t fret: The shower will still be nice the next night, too. As I describe below, the later at night you can stay out the better.
Where to look? Well, the Perseid meteors are named after the constellation Perseus because they appear to stream from that section of sky. Look about halfway up the sky toward the northeast around midnight if you’re in the US. But even if you don’t know your way around up there, the meteors should be easy enough to spot, if you’re patient and willing to wait a few minutes for one to show. Check the Earthsky guide here or visit the NASA Perseid home page for more viewing tips and enjoy!