by Conscious Reminder
August is truly a wonderful month because soon enough, the midnight blue of the sky will be lit up as shooting stars crash through it.
The Perseid meteor shower is just around the corner and even though they aren’t really ‘shooting stars’, they’re still beautiful to watch.
The Perseids are a group of meteors and some debris from comets and you shouldn’t miss out on the opportunity to catch a glimpse of them.
Nicholas St. Fleur, who writes for the New York Times, says that comets are similar to dirty snowballs. While traveling around our solar system, their presence lingers long after they’re gone, in the ice and rocks they leave behind.
As Earth moves into this cluster of remnants, we’ll be able to see them when they crash into the atmosphere and explode in such a manner that they look like the universe’s own display of fireworks.
Taking its name from the Perseus constellation, this shower happens whenever we pass through the belt of debris which is about 27 km in width. This is left behind by a comet called Swift-Tuttle which takes more than a century to complete its orbit.
Usually, if you live in a place where the night sky is dark and clear, you’ll be able to see around 100 of these shooting stars every hour.
Perseid Meteor Shower 2021: The annual Perseid meteor shower is here and ready to bless our eyes on Wednesday night. The annual celestial event is expected to reach its peak just before dawn, i.e., in the wee hours of August 12 (Thursday). During this time, the meteor shower will be most visible to the human eye, although it could put on a fine show for a night or two before and after the said date.
The annual Perseid meteor shower will be visible in the Northern Hemisphere with a sudden onset of a meteor ranging from 15 to 200 in the span of a few hours. It is deemed to be one of the brightest events in the skies that photographers wait to be able to capture.
Perseid Meteor Shower 2021: When and Where to Watch
It is believed that this year’s conditions are as near to perfect as can be. The waxing crescent Moon, sets around 10 PM local time, setting a dark, moonless stage until dawn, exactly what one needs to witness the celestial event.
According to Earthsky.org, no matter where you live worldwide, the 2021 Perseid meteor shower will probably produce the greatest number of meteors on the mornings of August 11, 12 and 13.
A person can watch up to 60 meteors per hour at the peak of the event, they said.
In case you cannot step out during this time, you can also livestream it on NASA’s website.
To get the full effect of the shower, try to get to a place which is far from the flaring lights of the city. Take a comfy blanket to lie down on and switch off all your devices.
In less than half an hour your eyes will have adjusted to the dark and you’ll be perfectly set to watch nature’s own fireworks.
While you can take a telescope or pair of binoculars with you, they won’t really help because they only offer a restricted view of the night sky.
Have fun watching the skies!
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