The Perseid Meteor Shower

If you’re like me, you’re stuck in a major city right now, where the light pollution makes it impossible to watch tonight’s Perseid Meteor Shower.

But the great folks at the Slooh Space Camera have made it possible for all of us to live stream it from the comfort of our homes! Guys, it’s LIVE!

What is the Perseid Meteor Shower?

The annual Perseid Meteor Shower runs this year from July 17 to August 24th, but it’s best to view August 12 and 13, well after midnight and before dawn.

If you’re watching either at home or in the field, and you’re wondering why you’re not seeing much it may have to do with it’s frequency. Be patient, at its peak you may see 60+ comets an hour! When it happens, it will be stunning.

The Perseid Meteor Shower comes to us courtesy of the comet Swift-Turtle. The actual show that we see is the dust that comes off of the comet trail as it enters our atmosphere and burns up.

The comet actually makes an appearance every 133 years, but the annual show comes from our planet Earth entering the dust trail the Swift-Turtle left behind on its orbit through the solar system. That’s how we can see the shower without the actual comet!

The name “Perseid” comes from where the meteor shower appears to originate from in the sky, the Perseus constellation.

What’s twitter saying?

Tonight, Earth plows through up to 1,000 tons of rocky debris. Behold the annual Perseid Meteor shower http://t.co/YSzvozKLOR — Neil deGrasse Tyson (@neiltyson) August 10, 2013

Watched the sky during tonight’s Perseid meteor shower, saw 3 satellites and 3 shooting stars. Need to tell my 6 friends on Station to duck! — Chris Hadfield (@Cmdr_Hadfield) August 12, 2013

Getting up in 5 hours to watch minuscule particles of space rock penetrate the earth’s atmosphere at an outrageous speed #perseid #meteor — Ryan Thomas (@RyPThomas) August 12, 2013

Layed cuddling watching all the shooting stars from the perseid meteor shower with a fire and some munch. Never been happier! <3 — Kim Jong Ryan (@Ryan_Hackneyy) August 12, 2013

NASA: Perseids have most fireballs. Shown: Perseid fireball from 8/12/06. Image Credit: Courtesy of Pierre Martin pic.twitter.com/OgTYu3KlHP — StarTalk (@StarTalkRadio) August 12, 2013

More information!

Enjoy the show!