Perseid Meteor Shower Peaks Tonight

The most popular meteor shower of the year is now! The Perseid meteor shower peaks between tonight and Saturday night, with usually 100 meteors per hour.

This year is a little different due to the moon. Our last supermoon of the year is Thursday, the full Sturgeon Moon. This is also why our tides are running rather high the next several nights through the weekend (watch for minor coastal flooding during those overnight high tides in the typical spots). So the next few nights we may only see around 50 meteors or less an hour. The clouds decrease enough to catch a glimpse of a couple meteors tonight. If you miss it tonight, keep an eye to the night sky because for the next week or two we can still see some meteors.

This meteor shower occurs every year at this time as Earth passes through a comet’s orbit. This one is the Comet Swift-Tuttle and it’s made of rock and ice. The small particles in the tail hold in the orbit and as the earth passes through the dusty orbit path, the particles burn up in the atmosphere rapidly, creating the “shooting stars” or meteors. Rarely are these particles large enough to actually make it through and hit the ground. But if one does, it’s called a meteorite. Happy stargazing!