Every year, it's the same thing for our greatest pleasure! The Perseid meteor shower will peak on the night of Thursday August 12 to Friday August 13, but many meteors will also be visible during the preceding and following nights.
This is one of the most anticipated astronomical events of the summer:the Perseid meteor shower. Already visible in the night sky for several nights, this "stardust" will be more numerous overnight from Wednesday to Thursday, before an expected peak of activity on August 12 and 13. Up to a hundred meteors could then split the sky every hour, especially during the second part of the evening.
As with any astronomical event, it is naturally best to move away from any source of light pollution. Note that the conditions will be particularly favorable this year, since this Thursday evening the sky will be dark thanks to the new Moon. Allow your eyes to adjust for 20 minutes for maximum viewing (no need for binoculars, which will only restrict your field of vision). Let's hope the weather is good!
The parent body of this meteor shower is Comet 109P/Swift-Tuttle, named after its discoverers.
Made of rock and ice, the object leaves behind a trail of small meteors usually no larger than a grain of sand that enter the Earth's atmosphere every year nearly 60 km/s when our planet crosses their path. They are then instantly vaporized under the effect of the heat, hence the famous luminous streaks visible from the surface. It is very rare for the Perseids to come up with a fragment of space rock large enough to land on Earth.
Going back to the parent body, you have to know that comet 109P completes one revolution around the Sun every 133 years. Its last passage dates from 1992. At the time, the object had passed at a distance of 177 million kilometers from our planet . The next "rendezvous" is therefore expected in 2126. It is then expected that the comet will pass 24 million kilometers from Earth. Then the comet will "graze" our planet within 1.6 million kilometers in 3044.
Note that the Perseids will not be the last meteor shower this year. Next will come the Orionids (from October 2 to November 7), then the Leonids (from November 6 to 30), the Geminids (from December 4 to 17) and finally the Ursids (from December 18 to 26).
