The Perseid summer light show is back — and viewing conditions are especially promising for the Northern Hemisphere.
The meteor shower's peak Wednesday night into Thursday morning coincides with a total solar eclipse across Spain, Iceland and Greenland and a six-planet parade — though the best time to view the fireballs will come after totality.
That means Minnesotans and those in the Upper Midwest are getting a front row view. The Perseids meteor shower is thanks to the massive 16-mile wide Comet Swift-Tuttle, according to former WCCO Radio meteorologist Mike Lynch, who still hosts star watch gatherings across Minnesota.
"And what comets are, they're basically dirty snowballs," Lynch says. "They partially melt when they get close to the sun, and they leave a debris trail all throughout their orbit."
The best time to see all the meteors is late Wednesday night into early Thursday morning, with Lynch saying the sweet spot is from about 2:00 a.m. until twilight.
"We can have, in the countryside, anywhere from 50 to 100 meteors an hour," Lynch adds. "Or, if you insist, shooting stars although they're not stars. They're meteors."
Random meteors are visible in dark skies on any given night. Meteor showers tend to put on dazzling celestial shows and happen at predictable times every year when the Earth plows through trails of debris left behind by comets and, sometimes, asteroids. Those remnants collide with Earth’s atmosphere at extremely high speeds, producing streaks of light known as shooting stars.
"After midnight we're facing the direction of the Earth's orbit around the sun and the debris trail," Lynch explains. "So it's kind of like if you're driving in the summertime, you get more bugs on the front windshield than you do the rear windshield. Well, we're facing the front windshield after midnight."
The 109P/Swift-Tuttle comet is an icy ball that orbits the sun every 133 years and isn't scheduled for a return visit until 2125. Observations of this meteor shower date back over 2,000 years.
The Perseids are a perennial favorite because they tend to produce brilliant fireballs. Summer temperatures also make this shower popular.
“We don't have to suffer through a cold winter night to get a good view of meteors,” said astronomer Zach Vanderbosch with McDonald Observatory in Texas.
The moon will be in its new moon phase during the Perseids' peak, making viewing conditions even better.
“The moon is beautiful, but it’s such a diva,” said astronomer Aparna Venkatesan with the University of San Francisco. “New moon means we don’t have moonlight flooding the sky, and you tend to see way more meteors as a result.”
To spot the meteors, go outside after dark, away from clouds and city lights. Venkatesan plans to drive to the Sierra Nevada.
The best views will be between midnight and dawn when the constellation Perseus is high in the northern sky. The meteors will appear to radiate from that constellation.
Look up and give your eyes a half hour to adjust to the darkness. Vanderbosch recommends picking a patch of sky to focus on until a quick, bright streak passes by — even in your peripheral vision — and to avoid looking at your phone.
“There's just something magical about it,” Vanderbosch said.
(AP Science Writer Adithi Ramakrishnan contributed to this story)
