From today through Tuesday, the nights will be filled with meteor showers, thanks to the annual Perseid meteor shower. This time, the peak of the phenomenon will occur during the day between 10 a.m. and 10 p.m. on Monday, according to TSF.
“This shower, in particular, has a gradual increase in the number of meteors until the peak, and since the Perseids are rich in brighter meteors with more stable paths, the dawn of 11 to 12 hours is ideal to spend an hour looking high in the sky to watch the meteors pass by,” explains Ricardo Reis, science communication officer at the Porto Planetarium, in the Centro de Ciência Viva, to TSF.
Meteor showers occur when Earth passes through the “debris trail left by comets.” In the case of the Perseids, that's comet 109P/Swift-Tuttle, discovered in 1862, according to Ricardo Reis.
“We'll see bright streaks across the sky, and they seem to be coming from everywhere, but in fact, if we can take a long-range image, we'll see that they all appear to be coming from the constellation Perseus,” he explains.
During the following dawn, in a dark sky, without light or light pollution, the number of meteors is expected to reach a hundred meteors per hour.
According to the science communicator at the Porto Planetarium, if you can't see the Perseids all night from Sunday to Monday, you can try your luck until August 24.
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