Perseid Meteor Shower Returns This Weekend
One of them most well-known meteor showers, the Perseid meteor shower, will reach its peak sometime on Friday night according to Space.com.
The Perseid shower usually appears yearly and returns this week expected to hit its peak activity between Friday night and Saturday morning. The full moon of August may interfere with the display of the shower so the best time to watch it would be right before dawn according to experts at NASA.
The International Space Station will also be in flight at that time and those who view the meteor shower pre-dawn may catch a glimpse of it overhead.
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NASA’s space station tracker lists local flyby times, including those for cities such as New York, Chicago and Dallas. They are expected to have good viewing times overnight Friday into Saturday.
Astronomer Bill Cooke will host a Perseids webchat and “all night” meteor shower viewing party that NASA is urging people to participate in. It will start around 11 p.m. EDT on Friday and will end at 5 a.m. Saturday.
According to Space.com, the meteors in the shower stream out of the constellation Perseus which is why it is called the Perseids meteor shower.
NASA and the International Meteor Organization stated that the watchers of the Perseids are anticipating seeing about a dozen of them per hour in a light show that will likely reach its peak between August 12 and 13.
The shower will occur as the Earth orbits near the heart of the comet debris system.
There is a possibility that the full moon could outshine the Perseid shower due to the fact that is occurs one hour after the peak of the shower. It will brighten up the sky making it harder to see meteors that are more visible in a darker one according to NASA.
They also state that the full moon will be relatively low before dawn making that the best time to watch the Perseid meteor shower.
