Perseid Meteor shower visible throughout world

August 12, 2007

Los Angeles - The Perseid Meteor shower should be visible throught the world this weekend.

A new moon will aid stargazers because the sky will be very dark so that "shooting stars" or meteors are easier to spot.

"When our planet, moving through space, intersects some dirt, and as the dirt cloud burns up completely in the Earth's atmosphere, we get a beautiful flash of light," said Andrew Fraknoi, head of the astronomy department at Foothill College in San Francisco.

The meteor shower will be easiest to see away from any cities to avoid light pollution. It's possible to see up to one meteor per minute if conditions are right.

Although the meteors appear to radiate from a point in the constellation Perseus in the northeastern sky, they can be seen anywhere.

Robin Scagell, of the Society for Popular Astronomy, said: "The Perseids are the most reliable of the meteor showers.

"Although you could see 80 an hour, I'd say one a minute is more realistic, and that's a good number".

"They are distinctive meteors, which move quite quickly in a sudden flash of light. Some are quite spectacular with long contrails, and occasionally you get a trail that carries on glowing for a minute or two".

The Perseids are made up of dusty debris shed by Comet Swift-Tuttle, discovered in 1862.

Each year the Earth's orbit causes it to plough through the meteors, which burn up as they shoot through the upper atmosphere at more than 130,000 mph.

Chinese records dating from 36AD contain the earliest reports of the Perseids.