If you’re hoping to see a shooting star this summer, get ready for the Perseid meteor shower, which will peak in early August.
The meteor shower began on July 14 and continues through Sep. 1, but the peak is forecast to be around Aug. 11 and 12, giving stargazers many chances to see the shower.
This year, the peak will coincide with a first quarter moon, which sets around midnight, making 2024 an excellent year to view the Perseids with a dark sky.
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A shower of Perseid meteors lights up the sky in 2009 in this NASA time-lapse image. (NASA/JPL) -
Composite image of shooting stars with a silhouette of a small tree during the 2015 Perseid Meteor Shower. (Getty) -
Perseid meteors fall as a satellite passes across the sky early August 12, 2008 near Rogers Spring in the Lake Mead National Recreation Area, Nevada. (Ethan Miller/Getty Images)
The Perseids can produce 50 to 100 meteors per hour for a single observer. The falling meteors often leave wakes of light and colors behind them, and the shower is also known to produce fireballs that are visible for longer than typical meteors.
What most people call shooting stars are actually pieces of debris from asteroids, according to the National Park Service. As the Earth passes through a debris field, the meteors burn up in the atmosphere and appear like a star falling from the sky.
In the case of the Perseids, the meteors come from comet 109P/Swift-Tuttle, which passes by the Earth every 133 years. The debris field remains, however, resulting in the yearly meteor shower named for the constellation Perseus, where the meteors appear to originate from the perspective of Earth.
Those hoping to see the Perseids should head to an area with minimal light pollution and try to view the shower during the darker phases of the moon. The meteors are usually most visible in the hours before dawn but can also be seen in the evening.