The Perseids meteor shower will see its peak Thursday and Friday, despite a full moon.
A full moon Thursday will lighten up the sky, making the normally abundant show of shooting stars more difficult to see this year than last. Astronomers suggest viewing the shower away from city lights and while facing away from the moon.
“Sadly, this year’s Perseids peak will see the worst possible circumstances for spotters,” NASA astronomer Bill Cooke said. Cooke leads the Meteoroid Environment Office at NASA’s Marshall Space Flight Center in Huntsville, Alabama. “Most of us in North America would normally see 50 or 60 meteors per hour, but this year, during the normal peak, the full Moon will reduce that to 10-20 per hour at best.”
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Typically, the Perseids shower even includes fireball explosions of light and color. It comes every year between mid-July and September. The best hour to see the shower — and astronomers recommend at least an hour’s viewing, as the show can lull in activity — is just before dawn. Meteors could be seen as soon as 10 p.m.
This shower comes from the 16-mile-wide Swift-Tuttle comet, discovered in 1862. The comet orbits the sun every 133 years, according to NASA, and its debris causes the shower.
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Its showers happen around the Perseus constellation, where the name comes from.
