The annual Perseid meteor shower will hit its peak from midnight to dawn Thursday. Photo by WN
The annual Perseid meteor shower will hit its peak from midnight to dawn Thursday, offering sky gazers a parade of "shooting stars."
The absence of moonlight should make the bursts of light appear even more brilliant than in years past.
The streaks of light are far from the shooting stars of fairy tales, but popcorn-size particles fallen from comet Swift-Tuttle thousands of years ago. When they detached they spread out along the comet's path.
Though Earth passes near the comet only once every 130 years, it passes through the particles in the comet's path every year during mid-August. The particles are moving at 108,000 miles an hour, 60 miles above Earth's surface. They burn up in a fraction of a second.
The result is an awe-inspiring shower of light that some native cultures believed signaled the passage of one's soul into the heavens.