New Delhi: It would be surprising if you got to know that there would be no night on 12 August! Yes Astronomers have confirmed that there will be a meteor shower on the night of August 12, 2017, which will be the brightest shower in human history!
According to the reports it is believed that “night will appear as day” and that this is a “once in a lifetime opportunity”.
The Perseid meteor shower is a result of debris falling from the tail of Comet Swift-Tuttle bursting into Earth’s atmosphere.
The comet’s orbital period is about 130 years and the meteors or ‘shooting stars’ are the result of small particles, in some cases as small as a grain of sand, entering the Earth’s upper atmosphere at some 130,000mph and lighting up the nighttime as fast-moving streaks of light.
The shower is active this year from around July 17 to August 24, although for most of that period only a few meteors an hour will be visible.
It will peak on the night of Saturday August 12 when there will be up to 100 meteors an hour. To see them you do not need a telescope, binoculars or any other equipment.
The Perseids come from a point in front of the constellation Perseus which is in the north-eastern part of the sky, however the meteors can be seen from any point in the sky.
Just wrap up warm and head outside and find a spot of night sky away from bright city lights and look up.
Give yourself at least an hour of observing time as the meteors can come in spurts and are interspersed with lulls.
The meteors and shooting stars you see are tiny particles or grains of rock and dust. They burn up as they enter the Earth’s atmosphere at some 130,000mph.
