Perseids Meteor Shower Set To Peak This Week
BALTIMORE (WJZ) -- Every 133 years, the Swift-Tuttle comet swings around our Sun, leaving a trail of debris in its wake.
And every August, Earth orbits through that debris, and it hits our atmosphere.
"The debris is very small," says Jim O'Leary, of the Maryland Science Center. "It's like particles of sand, or no bigger than your little finger nail, so pebbles at most."
But those tiny, leftover pieces of comet are going incredibly fast, "like 30 or 40 miles per second," O'Leary says.
When they burn up, one after another every August, we see what we call the Perseid meteor shower.
According to NASA, there may be an even brighter light show in the sky this year, as Earth could travel more to the center of the debris trail than is typical.
That's due to Jupiter's gravity pulling the Perseids closer to it. Instead of grazing the field of debris, we're going through the thick of it.
"Typically we get 80, 90, maybe 100 meteors per hour," O'Leary says. "In this case we could see up to 200. Some people have suggested more than 300 or 400."
The shower will peak in the dark hours between August 11 and August 12, or Thursday night into Friday morning. Getting away from city light pollution is the best way to spot nature's light show.
NASA suggests allowing about 45 minutes for your eyes to adjust to the dark, then lie on your back and look straight up.
While you're doing that, here are some fun facts to share with your sky gazing friends, also courtesy of NASA:
- "The meteors you'll see this year are from comet flybys that occurred hundreds if not thousands of years ago," according to Bill Cooke. "And they've traveled billions of miles before their kamikaze run into Earth's atmosphere."
- Perseid meteors travel at the blistering speed of 132,000 miles per hour (59 kilometers per second), which is 500 times faster than the fastest car in the world.
- Peak temperatures of the meteors can reach anywhere from 3,000 to 10,000 degrees Fahrenheit as they speed across the sky.
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