A Midsummer Night's Dream

Here we are again! I cannot wait to watch that wonderful spectacle which is such a celestial firework display known as the Perseid meteor shower.

A meteor takes place when a tiny piece of rock, no bigger in size than a grain of sand, crashes into the Earth’s upper atmosphere at a very high speed. The friction causes the meteor to burn up creating a brief streak of light across the sky. Hundreds of meteors strike the Earth every single day, but, fortunately, they are not big enough to reach the ground. If the space rock is big enough to survive its journey through the atmosphere and make it to the ground, then it is known as a meteorite, which can be really dangerous depending on its size and the place where it hits the planet’s surface.

At certain times of the year, as the Earth orbits the Sun, it passes through the debris left by the tail of a comet. The comet may have passed many years before but those debris will remain in space across our path. When the Earth passes through the trail we see an increased rate of meteors or a meteor shower. The meteors will appear to radiate from a particular constellation and therefore it is named after that constellation.

The most prolific of all the meteor showers occurs from about 4th until 15th August when the Earth goes through the debris left by comet Swift-Tuttle. As the meteors appear to stem from the constellation of Perseus, then the shower is known as the Perseids. Up to 80 meteors per hour can be usually seen during the peak period on 11th – 12th, but this year astronomers are predicting over 200 meteors per hour because our planet is expected to pass through a high density region of debris.

You do not need any special equipment to watch the shower, just find a dark area away from any light pollution, make yourself comfortable, and look up into the sky, mainly towards the Northeast horizon, although you can see meteors anywhere in the sky. After midnight on 11th August is expected to be the best time to admire such a beautiful scene. The darker the sky and your viewing area, the more meteors you will be able to see…

…and if you do see a shooting star, be sure to make a wish… it is said they always come true.