It’s August and the Perseids are right around the corner. The most famous meteor shower of the year should reach peak activity in the morning of August 12, between 00 and 04 UTC (Coordinated Universal Time). According to Jérémie Vaubaillon, one of the foremost meteor scientists, we should have better than average rates this year. Of course, take this with a grain of salt; nobody guarantees it’s going to happen. But even if we have normal activity from the Perseids, the show will be pretty spectacular. Expect to see around 50-60 meteors per hour; maybe more. But what are the Perseids? The Perseids, like most meteor showers, originate from comets. While travelling through the Solar System, comets leave behind a stream of debris, called meteoroids. These are very small bodies, ranging in size from a grain of sand to one meter. When comets intersect the orbit of a planet (in our case, Earth), gravity makes the meteoroids gather into clouds along the orbit of the planet. When Earth goes through one of this clouds of particles, the meteoroids fall towards the planet. Because of friction with the atmosphere, the gases surrounding the small meteoroid get ionised and emit light. This […]