Look up at the night sky this summer if you want to wish upon a shooting star.
The Perseid meteor shower, also known as the Perseids, is making its annual appearance from now through late August. It will reach its peak between Aug. 11 and 13, and will end around Aug. 24.
North Texans can see the Perseids by looking north or locating the constellation Perseus, where the meteors appear to fall from. You can locate Perseus by finding its neighboring constellation Cassiopeia, which has a distinctive zig-zag shape, or by using apps like Night Sky and Star Walk.
The best time to look for the Perseids is after midnight until dawn, said Marc Hairston, a research scientist at the William B. Hanson Center for Space Sciences at the University of Texas at Dallas.
“The sky will be the darkest and you won’t be held up by the bright white of the moon,” he said.
The Perseids are the result of space debris — icy rock, dust and organic material — left behind by the Swift-Tuttle Comet as it orbits the Sun. Its orbit takes 133 years to complete.
The comet gets its name from the two American astronomers who independently discovered it in 1862: Lewis Swift and Horace Tuttle. Italian astronomer Giovanni Schiaparelli later identified it in 1865 as the source of the Perseids.
“What we’re seeing in the meteor shower is Earth passing through the debris from the comet Swift-Tuttle,” said McKenna Dowd, program coordinator of the University of Texas at Arlington’s Planetarium. “So a whole bunch of little rocks and ice … burn up in the atmosphere as we’re passing through all that debris and we see that as a meteor shower or, as it’s commonly known, shooting stars.”
When these meteors hit Earth’s atmosphere, they can reach speeds of over 133,000 miles per hour, Hairston said.
The Perseids are among the most plentiful of meteor showers. Over the next couple of weeks, Hairston and Dowd said, there can be anywhere from 50 to 100 meteors zipping through the night sky in a given hour. When Earth passes through the thickest part of the comet’s train of space debris during the peak days, the number jumps to around 200 meteors per hour.
Some of these meteors, called fireballs, are very bright and thus easier to see in the night sky. Others may be harder to catch if you’re in an area with significant light pollution like Dallas. Hairston recommends traveling outside urban and suburban areas for optimal viewing. Online resources like the Light Pollution Map and DarkSky.org can help you find a good spot.
Even in darker skies, don’t expect to see a nonstop parade of shooting stars, Hairston said. Meteor watching requires a lot of patience.
“I don’t want people to be disappointed that they go out one morning and wait five minutes and don’t see anything,” Hairston said. “Find a nice place with a clear sky, look up and spend 30 minutes to an hour just watching … It’s all about the luck of the draw, what’s out there that night and where you are to get to see it.”
Miriam Fauzia is a science reporting fellow at The Dallas Morning News. Her fellowship is supported by the University of Texas at Dallas. The News makes all editorial decisions.