Annual Meteor Shower: The Perseids from Perseus

Annual Meteor Shower: The Perseids from Perseus

This is a good week to see meteors. Comet dust will rain down on planet Earth, streaking through dark skies during peak nights of the annual Perseid Meteor Shower. This composite image was taken during the 2018 Perseids from the Poloniny Dark Sky Park in Slovakia. The dome of the observatory in the foreground is on the grounds of Kolonica Observatory. Although the comet dust particles travel parallel to each other, the resulting shower meteors clearly seem to radiate from a single point on the sky in the eponymous constellation Perseus. The radiant effect is due to perspective, as the parallel tracks appear to converge at a distance, like train tracks. The Perseid Meteor Shower is expected to reach its highest peak on Saturday, Aug. 12, 2023, after midnight. Since a crescent Moon will rise only very late that night, cloudless skies will be darker than usual, making a high number of faint meteors potentially visible this year.

The Perseids, which peak during mid-August, are considered the best meteor shower of the year. With very fast and bright meteors, Perseids frequently leave long "wakes" of light and color behind them as they streak through Earth's atmosphere. The Perseids are one of the most plentiful showers (50-100 meteors seen per hour) and occur with warm summer nighttime weather, allowing sky watchers to easily view them.

Perseids are also known for their fireballs. Fireballs are larger explosions of light and color that are brighter and can persist longer than an average meteor streak. This is due to the fact that fireballs originate from larger particles of cometary material.

Image Credit & Copyright: Petr Horálek/Institute of Physics in Opava

Petr's website: https://www.petrhoralek.com

Institute of Physics in Opava (Czech Republic): https://www.slu.cz/phys/en/

Release Date: Aug. 9, 2023

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