Skywatchers, this will be a great year for the Perseids

The best-known meteor shower, the Perseids, is expected to be at itsNorth American best during the predawn hours of Friday the 12th ofAugust. “And with no Moon in the sky to spoil the view,” notes NASASolar System Ambassador to Utah Patrick Wiggins, “observers away fromcity light pollution may be able to see 1 or 2 meteors every minute.”

Some meteors may also be seen in the nights and mornings just before andafter the 12th but Friday morning will probably be the best time to looksince that’s when Utah, and the rest of North America, will be mostnearly centered in and facing toward the oncoming meteoroid swarm.

These meteors are called the Perseids because they appear to radiatefrom the constellation Perseus.

Telescopes and binoculars should not be used for viewing this or anymeteor shower since they limit how much of the sky the observer can see. Wiggins says that a lawn chair, the naked eye “and a few munchies% arethe best devices for viewing meteor showers.

Often called “shooting stars” or “falling stars”, the majority ofmeteors are actually tiny bits of rock that burn up do to air frictionwhen they strike Earth’s extreme upper atmosphere. The resultant meteorash then drifts harmlessly and invisibly to Earth.

Wiggins notes that the Perseids are among the fastest meteors known,”tearing into our atmosphere at some 60 kilometers per second%. At thatrate a driver on the interstate could cover the distance from Salt Laketo St. George in about 8 seconds.

Most meteors are thought to be debris left behind by comets. ThePerseids’ parent comet, Swift/Tuttle, was last closest to the Earth inthe early 1990s and will not return until 2126.

Perseids observing information can be found at Wiggins’ Solar SystemAmbassador web site at http://www.umnh.utah.edu/utahsky.