See the Perseids at their peak: This Week in Astronomy with Dave Eicher

The purpose within the sky from which a bathe of meteors seems to stream known as the radiant. Credit score: Tony Hallas

Prepare this weekend for a summer time blockbuster you received’t wish to miss: the most important meteor bathe of the yr, the Perseids. They’ll peak on the night of Sunday, Aug. 13 — a good time of month, practically New Moon. When you get to a dark-sky web site you may even see as much as 60 meteors per hour.

For this annual celestial spectacular, we now have a comet to thank: 109P/Swift-Tuttle, which was found in 1862. This periodic comet solely swings by way of the internal solar system each 133 years, however the path of particles persists round its orbit. Yearly when the Earth passes by way of this path, specks of rock collide with the ambiance and fritter away, forming what we see as meteors. Like most meteor showers, the Perseids are typically at their finest round midnight and into the early morning hours, when the Earth’s rotation is carrying you into the oncoming particles subject.