The \u201cbest meteor shower of the year\u201d is ready to light up the August sky.<\/p>\n
The Perseids meteor shower is active through Aug. 23 but its peak nights are Tuesday, Aug. 12 and Wednesday, Aug. 13. Under the right conditions \u2013 and the moon may play a role in what we can see this year <\/a>\u2013 the Perseids is capable of producing as many as 50 to 100 meteors per hour. <\/p>\n This year, viewers should expect about 35 meteors per hour.<\/p>\n According to NASA, <\/a>some of these meteors are fireballs capable of creating long \u201cwakes\u201d of bright light and color behind them.<\/p>\n The best viewing times will be in the pre-dawn hours, specifically 2 a.m.- 3 a.m., though you may be able to see meteors as early as 10 p.m. local time.<\/p>\n The Perseids are created by leftover comet particles created by 109P\/Swift-Tuttle. When comets come around the sun, NASA explained<\/a>, the particles leave a dusty trail that collides with the Earth\u2019s atmosphere to create the \u201cshooting stars.\u201d The Perseids appear to come from the constellation Perseus, which gives it its name, but that\u2019s just a guide, NASA said, and the meteors can be see across the sky.<\/p>\n Viewing tipsLook for an area with a clear view of the sky and away from light pollution.Give your eyes time to adjust to the dark before sitting back and taking in as much of the sky as possible.Stay off your phone \u2013 light from your phone makes it harder to see the shooting stars.<\/p>\n If you purchase a product or register for an account through a link on our site, we may receive compensation. By using this site, you consent to our User Agreement<\/a> and agree that your clicks, interactions, and personal information may be collected, recorded, and\/or stored by us and social media and other third-party partners in accordance with our Privacy Policy.<\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"The \u201cbest meteor shower of the year\u201d is ready to light up the August sky. The Perseids meteor…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":75301,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[48],"tags":[19409,7120,18897,79,193,45087,7943],"class_list":["post-75300","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-space","tag-milky-way","tag-perseid-meteor-shower","tag-perseids","tag-science","tag-space","tag-spruce-knob","tag-west-virginia"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/75300","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=75300"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/75300\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/75301"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=75300"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=75300"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=75300"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}