How to spot the Perseid meteor shower, a summer light show that promises to dazzle

The Perseid meteor shower is peaking on Wednesday night into Thursday morning. This event coincides with a total solar eclipse across Spain, Iceland, and Greenland, as well as a six-planet parade. However, the best time to view the meteors will be after the totality of the eclipse.

The meteor shower is expected to produce 50 to 100 meteors per hour under ideal conditions, according to NASA. The American Meteor Society estimates that 30 to 50 meteors per hour could be visible from rural regions. These meteors are debris from comet 109P/Swift-Tuttle, which orbits the sun every 133 years.

The Perseid meteor shower is a perennial favorite among astronomers due to its tendency to produce brilliant fireballs. The event has been observed for over 2,000 years and is considered a dazzling celestial show. Random meteors can be visible in dark skies on any given night, but the Perseid meteor shower is a predictable event that occurs when the Earth passes through trails of debris left behind by comets and asteroids.

Brief written by urgent.news from PBS NewsHour, PBS NewsHour Science, Phys.org, Guardian Science, NDTV — 5 reports on this story. Machine-written — it may contain errors, so check the original before relying on it.