This Year's Perseids Expected To Be Particularly Dazzling
MINNEAPOLIS (WCCO) – Heads up, a summer night light show is in store for the end of the work week.
Officials at NASA say that the Perseid meteor shower will peak Thursday and Friday, filling the night sky with shooting stars.
While the Perseids pass through every August, this year they're expected to be particularly dazzling.
"Forecasters are predicting a Perseid outburst this year with double normal rates," said Bill Cooke, of NASA's Meteoroid Environments Office, in a statement. "Under perfect conditions, rates could soar to 200 meteors per hour."
Related: Check out a live stream of the Perseid shower (beginning at 10 p.m. Thursday and Friday)
The meteors in the Perseids are all tiny pieces of the Swift-Tuttle comet, which orbits the sun every 133 years.
Those tiny pieces – even bits of dust -- blaze up as they pass through the Earth's atmosphere, moving at staggering 132,000 mph.
"The meteors you'll see this year are from comet flybys that occurred hundreds if not thousands of years ago," Cooke said. "And they've traveled billions of miles before their kamikaze run into Earth's atmosphere."
NASA officials say the best way to watch the meteor shower is to go outside between midnight and dawn on the mornings of Aug. 12 and Aug. 13.
Put a blanket down and get comfortable, preferably in an area away from light pollution. Give your eyes around 45 minutes to adjust to the darkness, then enjoy the show.
Stargazers in the Twin Cites metro will likely want to wait until Friday night/Saturday morning to see shooting starts, as the overnight forecast Thursday calls for rain.