Get Ready For a Romantic Night

By Irene Collins
21:07, August 11th 2008

A spectacular meteor shower is to be seen sometime during the night and early morning of August 11 to 12. If weather conditions are fine, its viewers can expect to see about 90 to100 meteors an hour, Wayne Hally, who writes for the North American Meteor Network explained for National Geographic. A meteor shower usually lasts for several days, but its peak will be reached Monday night through early Tuesday morning.

The source of the shower is Comet Swift-Tuttle, which was independently discovered by Lewis Swift on July 16, 1862 and by Horace Parnell Tuttle on July 19, 1862.

Although the comet is nowhere near Earth, the comet's tail does intersect Earth's orbit every year in August. Tiny bits of comet dust hit Earth's atmosphere traveling 132,000 mph. At that speed, even a smidgen of dust makes a vivid streak of light-a meteor-when it disintegrates. Because Swift-Tuttle's meteors fly out of the constellation Perseus, they are called "Perseids."

"The Perseids have been seen since 36 A.D., almost 2,000 years ago,” Hally also explained.

The shower will be seen from almost any place on Earth. And not only it is spectacular, but it is quite unpredictable as well. Watchers are advised to look northwest, between the constellation Perseus and Polaris, or the North Star. The best time to look will be between moonset and dawn tomorrow morning. And avoiding city lights is also recommended.

"The time to look is during the dark hours before dawn on Tuesday, August 12th," says Bill Cooke of NASA's Meteoroid Environment Office at the Marshall Space Flight Center. "There should be plenty of meteors--perhaps one or two every minute."

Serious meteor hunters will begin their watch early, on Monday evening, August 11th, around 9 pm when Perseus first rises in the northeast. This is the time to look for Perseid Earthgrazers--meteors that approach from the horizon and skim the atmosphere overhead like a stone skipping across the surface of a pond.

"Earthgrazers are long, slow and colorful; they are among the most beautiful of meteors," says Cooke. He cautions that an hour of watching may net only a few of these at most, but seeing even one can make the whole night worthwhile.

Tags: meteor shower