Persied's Meteor Shower
Tonight's the night! The peak of the annual meteor shower associated with Comet P109/Swift-Tuttel.
On the night of August 12th (that's tonight!) the meteor shower will be at its 'peak' time, with an estimated 100 meteors appearing every hour everywhere in the Northern Hemisphere. The ideal time to look at the shower will be around 2-5am (in any timezone). This is because the earth will turn to 'face' the debris of P109/Swift-Tuttel.
How does a meteor shower work?
Basically, for any non-astronomy nerds here, there are huge 'rocks' essentially floating through space in an orbit around the sun...no, not planets, these 'rocks' have a core (or 'nucleus') made of ice, and various gasses...when a rock has this special kind of core, it is termed a Comet, and they're recognized by their brilliantly glowing tails:
When the comet heats up, it expels some of this gas (think of a 'water spout' coming out of the back of the comet).
The debris however, is left in space long after the comet has passed by (it doesn't just disappear!). So the earth annually passes through this dust cloud left by the comet P109/Swift-Tuttle and we see the 'firework' show.
How do you see it? Just go outside around midnight-5am, look toward the North-Eastern sky with the naked eye.
