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What's Up for August?
The summer Perseids are here!
Hello and welcome! I'm Jane Houston Jones from
NASA's Jet Propulsion Laboratory in Pasadena, California.
The Perseid meteor shower is the best of the year.
It peaks on a moonless summer night--
from 4 p.m. on the 12th until 4 a.m. on the 13th EDT.
Because the new moon falls near the peak night,
the days before and after the peak
will also provide nice, dark skies.
Your best window of observation is
from a few hours after twilight until dawn
on the days surrounding the peak.
Unlike most meteor showers,
which have a short peak of high meteor rates,
the Perseids have a very broad peak
as Earth takes more than three weeks to plow through
the wide trail of cometary dust from Comet Swift-Tuttle.
The Perseids appear to radiate from the constellation Perseus,
visible in the northern sky soon after sunset this time of year.
Observers in mid-northern latitudes
will have the best views.
You should be able to see some meteors
from July 17 to August 24,
with the rates increasing during the weeks before August 12th
and decreasing after the 13th.
Observers should be able to see
60 to 70 per hour at the peak.
Remember, you don't have to look directly at the constellation
to see them.
You can look anywhere you want to--even directly overhead.
Meteor showers like the Perseids are caused by
streams of meteoroids hitting Earth's atmosphere.
The particles were once part of their parent comet--
or, in some cases, from an asterid.
[whoosh]
The parade of planets--Venus, Jupiter, Saturn, and Mars--
and the Milky Way--continue to grace the evening sky,
keeping you and the mosquitoes company
while you hunt for meteors.
Next month we'll take a late summer stroll
through the Milky Way.
No telescopes or binoculars needed!
You can catch up on all of NASA's
current and future missions at: www.nasa.gov
That's all for this month. I'm Jane Houston Jones.
NASA Jet Propulsion Laboratory
California Institute of Technology