Explanation:
Go outside tonight and see a celestial light show --
the later the better.
Tonight is the peak of the month-long
Perseid Meteor Shower.
Although visible every year at this time, the
Perseids are expected to appear particularly active
this year due to the relative absence of glare from the Moon during the peak.
Tonight, a thin moon will set a
few hours after the Sun, leaving a moonless and dark sky.
All through the night, all over the sky,
meteors will appear to shoot out the constellation Perseus and across the sky.
The rate of meteors and
fireballs is not known for sure,
but expected by some to be as high as
one meteor flash every minute.
Luckysky gazers
might be treated to a bright fireball like the one pictured above.
That fireball was
captured by a digital recorded over
Wise Observatory
during the 2001 Leonid Meteor Shower.
The meteor shower
poses no danger as few, if any, of the
sand-sized flaring bits are expected to reach the ground.
