If you have noticed more than a few shooting stars recently, there is an explanation - and no, it isn't that you get a bunch of wishes. The night of August 12 to early morning August 13 plays host to the annual Perseid meteor shower.
The annual meteor shower has already been dubbed the "highlight of the year" by space fans all over the United States and Canada, according to www.latinospost.com.
Even though you can catch glimpses of the meteor shower for days, the best time to catch and see the most action in the sky was between 11 p.m. EDT Saturday night and sunrise the next morning, with a peak at about 2 a.m. Sunday morning.
What looks like a lot of shooting stars is actually debris from a comet - specifically ice and dust. Earth passes through the trail of this comet once a year. It has been falling apart for a long time and leaving the trail of debris.
When the debris enters the Earth's atmosphere, it produces what we see as the meteor shower. During the peak of the meteor shower, one meteor could be seen roughly every minute. As the debris burns, some balls of fire and the light trails that they leave will be brighter than others.
The first sights of the meteor shower were seen when the sun set on August 11. No telescopes are needed to see this annual meteor shower. Places around the world other than North America can see the shower, but not as well.
The annual meteor shower has already been dubbed the "highlight of the year" by space fans all over the United States and Canada, according to www.latinospost.com.
Even though you can catch glimpses of the meteor shower for days, the best time to catch and see the most action in the sky was between 11 p.m. EDT Saturday night and sunrise the next morning, with a peak at about 2 a.m. Sunday morning.
What looks like a lot of shooting stars is actually debris from a comet - specifically ice and dust. Earth passes through the trail of this comet once a year. It has been falling apart for a long time and leaving the trail of debris.
When the debris enters the Earth's atmosphere, it produces what we see as the meteor shower. During the peak of the meteor shower, one meteor could be seen roughly every minute. As the debris burns, some balls of fire and the light trails that they leave will be brighter than others.
The first sights of the meteor shower were seen when the sun set on August 11. No telescopes are needed to see this annual meteor shower. Places around the world other than North America can see the shower, but not as well.
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