Perseid Meteor Shower: You Might See Meteors Tonight

The Perseid meteor shower will peak tonight and Friday, with up to 150 "shooting stars" streaking across the skies. Chicago-area skywatchers should have the best views of the meteor shower Thursday night and early Friday, according to the Weather Channel.

That is, if you escape the rain. The forecast calls for a 60 percent chance of showers and thunderstorms in the evening, and more showers and thunderstorms after midnight. Friday night's forecast brings much of the same.

The planned Perseid Meteor Shower Viewing Party at Cantigny Park in Wheaton for Friday, sponsored by the Adler Planetarium in Chicago, has been canceled because of the rain forecast. "Thunderstorms are also predicted, and the safety of our guests, staff, and volunteers always comes first," the Adler organizers said.

But if the skies are clear, what you see overnight could be spectacular. The peak comes the night of Aug. 11 into the early morning hours of Friday, Aug. 12.

After Friday night, your best chance of seeing Perseid meteors is late Saturday night into Sunday morning, with fewer visible each night through Aug. 26.

What are the Perseids? NASA says:

Every Perseid meteor is a tiny piece of the comet Swift-Tuttle, which orbits the sun every 133 years. Each swing through the inner solar system can leave trillions of small particles in its wake. When Earth crosses paths with Swift-Tuttle’s debris, specks of comet-stuff hit Earth’s atmosphere and disintegrate in flashes of light. These meteors are called Perseids because they seem to fly out of the constellation Perseus.

In a typical year, observers under a clear dark sky can expect to see up to 100 meteors per hour. But the planet Jupiter recently nudged the debris from the Swift-Tuttle comet closer to Earth, which could mean up to 150 meteors per hour the night of Aug. 11-12.

NASA meteor expert Bill Cooke says the Perseids will be in "outburst" this month, which means they'll appear at double the usual rates.

The Perseids are the only comet known to have damaged satellites orbiting satellites and delayed the launch of a space shuttle, says NASA. Their regular swings past Earth are recorded 2,000 years ago, with the meteors we see today likely were ejected from the Swift-Tuttle comet hundreds, or even thousands, of years ago.

The key to seeing a meteor shower is to go to a dark area, in the suburbs or countryside, and prepare to sit outside for a few hours. It takes about 30 minutes for your eyes to adjust to the dark, and the longer you wait outside, the more you'll see, Cooke says.

Fall/Winter 2016 Meteor Showers

Oct. 7, Draconids
This shower also favors the Northern Hemisphere. Great news! You don't have to stay up late to view this one, because the Draconids are most likely to fly in the evening hours. It’s usually a sleeper of a sky show, earthsky.org says, but in rare instances, the constellation Draco the Dragon in the northern sky can fire off hundreds of meteors in a single hour.

Oct. 20-21,Orionids
The glare of a waning gibbous moon in the early morning hours just before sunrise could intrude with the Orionids, which typically produce 10 to 20 meteors per hour. Most meteors in this shower tend to fall after midnight, and they’re typically at their best in the wee hours just before dawn. The Orionids also sometimes present bright fireballs.

Nov. 4-5, South Taurids
Though the best viewing conditions are likely to be after midnight on Nov. 5, the Taurids are very long-lasting, from Sept. 25-Nov. 25. They only offer about seven meteors an hour, but the Taurids are known for having a high percentage of fireballs. This is the first of two Taurid meteor showers, and it always adds a few more meteors to the South Taurids’ peak night.

Nov. 11-12, North Taurids
This shower is long-lasting, too, from Oct. 12-Dec. 2, but modest as well with only about seven meteors an hour, with most of the activity taking place around midnight. The meteors are slow moving, but very bright. The waxing gibbous moon could outshine this year’s shower.

Nov. 16-17, Leonids
Some of the greatest meteor storms in history have been associated with this event, which can produce rates of thousands of meteors per minute during a span of 15 minutes, as occurred on Nov. 17, 1966. “ Some who witnessed the 1966 Leonid meteor storm said they felt as if they needed to grip the ground, so strong was the impression of Earth plowing along through space, fording the meteoroid stream,” earthsky.org says.

Dec.13-14, Geminids
The last meteor shower of the year is usually one of the finest meteor showers visible in either the Northern or the Southern Hemisphere, but a full moon will be out all night, subduing the typically prolific Geminids, which can produce up to 120 meteors per hour. The shower peaks around 2 a.m.

Dec. 21-22, Ursids
This minor meteor shower often goes unnoticed. Produced by the dust grains left behind by the comet Tuttle, it produces only about five to 10 meteors an hour. The shower runs from Dec. 17-25, but it should peak around Dec. 21. The moon will be 23 days old at the time of peak activity, so it shouldn’t present too much of a problem.

— Beth Dalbey, Patch

photo credit: Brocken Inaglory, wikimedia commons