Every night for the next two weeks (weather permitting) it is going to be raining fire in the sky as John Denver sang in “Rocky Mountain High”. The Perseid meteorite shower is making another visit to Earth. It will peak between 9 and 14 August when you may be able to see as many as 60 meteors in the night sky.
The best times to watch are in the hours before dawn. This is because the Earth is turning into the cloud of debris and you will be able to see the long bright trails of the meteors and sometimes fireballs streaking across the night sky. What you will be looking at is a cloud of debris in the tail of the comet Swift-Tuttle swinging by on its 133-year orbit. The comet is 16 miles wide, roughly equivalent to the celestial object that struck the Earth killing the dinosaurs. Its orbit brings Swift-Tuttle as close as 84,000 miles from Earth. Swift-Tuttle is classified as potentially hazardous to our planet, but not in our lifetimes or those of the next few generations.
The meteors are called Perseids because they appear to come from the radiant in the sky near the constellation Perseus. They can’t be seen during the day because there’s too much light, but sometimes you will see them before midnight racing thorough the heavens.
Like the late John Denver you will be able to sing, “I’ve seen it raining fire in the sky.”
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