{"id":8083,"date":"2015-08-13T01:16:40","date_gmt":"2015-08-13T04:16:40","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/culturedarm.com\/?p=8083"},"modified":"2017-08-13T20:08:22","modified_gmt":"2017-08-13T19:08:22","slug":"daily-visual-the-perseids-reach-their-peak","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/culturedarm.com\/staging\/5793\/daily-visual-the-perseids-reach-their-peak\/","title":{"rendered":"Daily Visual: The Perseids Reach Their Peak"},"content":{"rendered":"

\"The_2010_Perseids_over_the_VLT<\/a><\/p>\n

This week marks the peak of the Perseids, a prolific meteor shower. The Perseids are visible each year from the middle of July until late August, with their activity coming to a climax between 9 August and 14 August.<\/p>\n

They can be seen across the night sky, but are most visible in the Northern Hemisphere. In 2007 and 2015, the dark sky of a new moon meant ideal conditions for witnessing the Perseids, but this year the moon will be three-quarters full as they reach their peak, making them more difficult to spot.<\/p>\n

* * *<\/p>\n

A meteor or ‘shooting star’ occurs when a meteoroid – a small rock moving through space – passes into Earth’s atmosphere at a high speed, heats up, and in the process produces a streak of light, caused by the glowing object\u00a0and\u00a0the glowing material it leaves in its wake.<\/p>\n

Meteors can occur singly at random, or as showers, where streams\u00a0of debris left by comets pass into Earth’s atmosphere on parallel trajectories. Meteor showers therefore appear\u00a0to radiate\u00a0from a single point in the sky, which is called the radiant.\u00a0Meteor showers tend to be named after the constellation from which they appear to radiate.<\/p>\n

The Perseids are debris from the comet Swift-Tuttle: a comet with an orbital period of 133 years. Their radiant lies in the constellation Perseus. The name ‘Perseids’ stems from Greek mythology, where the Perseides\u00a0are descendants of the hero Perseus.<\/p>\n

A meteorite is a piece of debris which survives impact with Earth’s surface. However most Perseids burn up in the atmosphere at heights above 80 kilometres.<\/p>\n

* * *<\/p>\n

The peak of a meteor shower arrives\u00a0when the shower’s radiant is highest in the sky. At their annual peak, the Perseids can offer sixty or more\u00a0visible meteors an hour.<\/p>\n

The best hours for observing the Perseids are often the few prior to dawn, although the evening can offer the rare prospect of an ‘earthgrazer’, which will only appear when the radiant is still near the horizon, and a meteor crosses horizontally overhead. Likened to a skipping stone across the surface of water, an ‘earthgrazer’ passes slowly and colourfully.<\/p>\n

Though the Perseids could be carefully traced back to the constellation Perseus, for the sake of viewing, there is no need to look towards any particular point in the sky. The Perseids will shoot across the sky in all manner of directions. Just find a dark spot\u00a0and look up.<\/p>\n

<\/div>\n
\"perseid-meteor-shower-sky-map-2015<\/a>
Sky map showing the radiant of the Perseids in the northeastern sky during 12 August and 13 August 2015<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

This week marks the peak of the Perseids, a prolific meteor shower. The Perseids are visible each year from the middle of July until late August, with their activity coming to a climax between 9 August and 14 August. They can be seen across the night sky, but are most visible in the Northern Hemisphere. […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":8086,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"nf_dc_page":"","_monsterinsights_skip_tracking":false,"_monsterinsights_sitenote_active":false,"_monsterinsights_sitenote_note":"","_monsterinsights_sitenote_category":0,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paid_content":false,"footnotes":"","jetpack_publicize_message":"","jetpack_publicize_feature_enabled":true,"jetpack_social_post_already_shared":true,"jetpack_social_options":{"image_generator_settings":{"template":"highway","enabled":false},"version":2}},"categories":[3854],"tags":[3990,3989,3991],"class_list":{"0":"post-8083","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","5":"has-post-thumbnail","7":"category-daily-visual","8":"tag-astronomy","9":"tag-perseids","10":"tag-science"},"jetpack_publicize_connections":[],"yoast_head":"\nDaily Visual: The Perseids Reach Their Peak - Culturedarm<\/title>\n<meta name=\"robots\" content=\"index, follow, max-snippet:-1, max-image-preview:large, max-video-preview:-1\" \/>\n<link rel=\"canonical\" href=\"https:\/\/culturedarm.com\/daily-visual-the-perseids-reach-their-peak\/\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:locale\" content=\"en_US\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:type\" content=\"article\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:title\" content=\"Daily Visual: The Perseids Reach Their Peak - Culturedarm\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:description\" content=\"This week marks the peak of the Perseids, a prolific meteor shower. 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