Woody Sees Shooting Stars
Every summer, around the middle of August, there is a really spectacular sky show called the Perseid meteor shower. This year the meteor shower is expected to peak on August 11 at about 1:15 a.m. Eastern Standard Time, 4:14 a.m. Pacific Daylight Time.
These meteor showers are caused by tiny bits of rock and dirt, called meteoroids, that were left behind when a comet crosses the path of the Earth’s orbit. Each year, as the Earth arrives at this point, hundreds of these meteoroids are caught by the Earth’s gravity and burn up as they enter the Earth’s atmosphere. When a meteoroid enters the atmosphere, they are called meteors, or shooting stars.
Most of these meteors are very, very small, much less than an inch in diameter, but when they enter the Earth’s atmosphere, they are travelling at about 37 miles a second, this or over 130,000 miles an hour! The friction of the Earth’s atmosphere on these tiny bits of rock causes them to burn, producing a fantastic light show of up to 50 “shooting stars” per hour, or almost one meteor streak a minute. While the meteor showers aren’t nearly as spectacular as Independence Day fireworks Ð the meteors show up as tiny streaks lasting a few seconds Ð the showers are clearly visible to the naked eye. In fact, using binoculars can limit the area of the sky you can see, and since meteor showers occur over a fairly large area of the sky, you may miss many of the streaking meteors by using binoculars.
Campgrounds, away from bright city lights, are a great place to watch the meteor shower. Just get a comfortable lounge chair, turn it toward the northeast and wait. Don’t forget insect repellent, or biting insects can drive you indoors before the first meteor flashes across the sky. The hardest point about watching a meteor shower may be staying awake, since the best time to view the Perseid shower is after midnight when the moon has set.
Little kids, and even some grownups may want to take a nap in the afternoon so they can see the showers without falling asleep. If the sky is very cloudy, or you just can’t stay awake long enough on August 11 to watch the shooting stars, don’t worry, the meteor shower generally continues for a few days before and after the peak viewing time.
Even if the weather stays cloudy, or your parents won’t let you stay up past your bedtime, you can always wait until next year to see the Perseid showers, since they happen every August. Once you find the Big Dipper, draw an imaginary line between the two pointer stars to find the North Star which is part of the Little Dipper. A line drawn through the two center stars of the handle will point to the Perseus constellation. In most parts of the U.S., the Perseid meteor showers will appear high in the northeastern sky.
If you’re looking for more information about the Perseid meteor showers, check out the August, 1997 issue of Sky and Telescope, there’s a great article with lots of details on when and where to watch the meteors, as well as instructions on how to record and report your observations to the International Meteor Organization.