Sunday, August 12, 2007

Don't Miss the Perseid Meteor Shower!


Just a few more hours until the peak of the Perseid Meteor shower! Since we're studying Astronomy this year, I thought this would be a great way to kick off our school year...which begins bright and early tomorrow morning.

The Perseids are actually bits of debris that have fallen off Comet Swift-Tuttle. This debris has been falling off the comet for centuries...some pieces are very small, like a grain of sand!

The Perseids, along with the Geminids, are the the two most dependable annual meteor showers. I've read that we can expect to see between 50 to 60 meteors this year! I just hope that it's really, really dark ...I wonder if we can get the city to turn off it's lights???

You can see the Perseid Meteor shower around 1:00am EST. These meteors seem to radiate out from a spot in northern Perseus near Cassiopeia.

Neat!!

1 comment:

Anonymous said...

Oh, I'm glad you reminded me of this. I'm hoping to catch a glimpse of it.