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If you’re like me, you got your first taste of the upcoming Perseid meteor shower on Google. If you search the fireball show on the search engine, you get a mock-up set of shooting stars. Who knew? 

The yearly meteor shower is thought by many space enthusiasts to be the best of the year. Here’s what the NASA folks have to say: “considered (to be) the best meteor shower of the year. With swift 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 with about 50 to 100 meteors seen per hour. They occur with warm summer nighttime weather allowing sky watchers to comfortably view them.”

 The jumbo Comet Swift-Tuttle is humongous, 16 whole miles across for the center of the blend of ice and rock … and other stuff. NASA says: “That is more than twice the size of the object hypothesized to have led the demise of the dinosaurs.” And so, you can theoretically see this all over, but you really want to get away from city lights. 

That said, your physical location should be in a really dark area, preferably away from city lights and tree canopies. 

While Perseus ‘radiates’ from the northeastern sky, appearing to emerge from the constellation Perseus, you can really be looking anywhere. It might be best to just lie flat on your back, on a blanket, and just look up! You don’t have to be looking northeast. 

Cloud-wise, it does look to be clearer in northern Minnesota. Hopefully these are just wispy cirrus clouds though! 

 There are some shooting stars present as I type this but the peak is Wednesday night into Thursday morning (after 11 p.m. Central on Aug. 12 until the early morning hours of Aug. 13). So, just plan to stay up Wednesday night. You won’t regret it!

 Can’t beat free fun! You do not need a telescope. Some modern smartphones may be able to capture the Perseids but don’t be too concerned on getting the right shot in real time. That’s for the pros, and even they’d need to be lucky. You could set up a really long exposure shot on your DSLR and that works really well! Otherwise, just find that dark area Wednesday night. 

 No, not why you’d want to see the Perseids, but why are they overhead this week? Well, each August, Earth passes through the debris cloud of the Comet Swift-Tuttle. Again, here’s NASA: “When comets come around the Sun, the dust they emit gradually spreads into a dusty trail around their orbits. Every year the Earth passes through these debris trails, which allows the bits to collide with our atmosphere where they disintegrate to create fiery and colorful streaks in the sky.” Swift-Tuttle takes 133 years to go around the Sun but we see impacts every summer.

 Everyone with a passing interest in space or science should experience meteor showers. Plus, this could be the moment that gets a future astronaut into space. After all, a Minnesotan is one of seven people on the International Space Station. We’re talking about Dr. Anil Menon from St. Paul, who’s on the Soyuz.

Weather and Climate News

Updraft® - Minnesota Weather News

Ben Cathey

Author

Plan to stay up late on Wednesday night to catch them.

What you need to know about the meteor shower peaking on Wednesday

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