We are entering the peak of the Perseid meteor shower season

We are in the midst of the Perseid meteor shower season, which is expected to peak overnight on August 11 through sunrise on August 12.

If the sky is clear, residents can see the meteor shower well after midnight, when the moon disappears.

So said Dr. Hoi Cheu, professor at Laurentian University and director of the Doran Planetarium.

“You want to make sure you have open space in the northeast,” he said, recommending places like protected natural areas and the green spaces of Laurentian University to view the showers.

The meteor shower is best seen when looking northeast. It appears to come from the constellation Perseus, hence the name.

The Perseid meteor shower is an annual phenomenon that occurs each summer and increases in intensity around the time of its annual peak – a bell-shaped curve that peaks on August 11 and 12, when more than 100 meteors per hour are visible.

Since there will be no moon visible on August 4, Cheu says that would be a good time to view the Perseid meteor shower.

“It’s really beautiful when the moon is gone,” he said, noting that residents of Greater Sudbury can look outside every night during the summer and likely see shooting stars (meteors).

(Since many people make wishes upon shooting stars, Cheu says there are plenty of opportunities during the summer months.)

This year’s Perseid meteor showers are good, he said, but the real show will come in 2028, when there will be a meteor storm.

Cheu said this will likely draw more attention than this year’s storm, which he said he is not aware of any special events happening locally.

NASA explains the annual meteor shower as part of the debris stream from Comet Swift-Tuttle, which was discovered in 1862 and takes 133 years to orbit the sun once. The comet last reached perihelion (its closest approach to the sun) in 1992, and it will return in 2125.

“As comets pass around the sun, the dust they throw out gradually spreads out into a dusty trail around their orbits,” NASA said. “Each year, Earth passes over these trails of debris, causing the pieces to collide with our atmosphere, where they break apart and create fiery, colorful streaks across the sky.”

Swift-Tuttle is about 26 kilometers (16 miles) across, making it more than twice the size of the object thought to have wiped out the dinosaurs.

According to Space.com, the comet could come within a million miles of Earth when it passes by in 3044. That’s more than twice the distance between Earth and its moon.