Perseid Meteor Shower Direction

You can see the perseid meteor shower best in the northern hemisphere and down to the mid southern latitudes and all you need to catch the show is darkness somewhere comfortable to sit and a bit.

Perseid meteor shower direction. Meteor showers are celestial events in which several meteors colloquially known as shooting stars can be seen in the night sky all appearing to originate from a single point known as the. Known as shooting stars meteors appear as brief streaks of light when small space rocks called meteoroids plunge into earth s atmosphere. Two of the best meteor showers of the year are the perseids which peak around 12 or 13 august and the geminids which peak near 13 and 14 december.

If you trace all the perseid meteors backward they all seem to come from the constellation perseus near the famous double cluster. Sky telescope illustration used with persmission. This is because the direction or radiant from which the shower seems to come in the sky lies in the same direction as perseus.

Each year the perseid meteor shower arrives sometime between july 17 and august 24. Hence the meteor shower is named in honor of the constellation. They reoccur at about the same time every year when earth comes around in its orbit and passes through the comet dust again.

Friction with the atmosphere heats the meteoroids to the point where they burn up each creating a bright flash that we call a meteor. Meteor showers occur when the earth passes through debris shed by a comet that flew through the inner solar system sometime in the past. The perseids are widely sought after by astronomers and stargazers because most years at its peak one can see 60 to 100 meteors in an hour from a dark place.

The perseids often get more media attention because they occur during the northern. The perseids are one of the best meteor showers of the year and they reach their peak on the night of august 12 13. While all perseids can be traced back to the perseus constellation you don t necessarily need to look in this direction to see them as the meteors will fly across all portions of the sky over the.

The perseids can involve up to 100 meteors. The perseid meteor shower is the best opportunity for stargazers in the northern hemisphere to witness a shooting star show in comfortable conditions.