While New Englanders are soon expected to see the remnants of Tropical Storm Debby, there’s a chance they will see a meteor shower reach its peak.
The Perseid meteor shower’s peak is on track to start between the night of Sunday, Aug. 11, and before dawn on Monday, Aug. 12, according to Space.com. The meteor shower began on July 14.
Thanks to the moon’s diminished illumination (50% during its First Quarter phase), seeing the Perseids should be easily seen through the darker skies. Less moonlight helped in 2016, when there were between 150 and 200 meteors per hour, Space.com wrote. Typically around 100 meteors are seen during the shower’s peak, according to NASA.
The Perseid meteors are remnants from comet 109P/Swift-Tuttle, according to the American Meteor Society. The Perseids are named after the direction they are seen flying from in the sky, in the direction of the constellation Perseus, named for Zeus’ demi-god son from Greek mythology who slew Medusa.
An average Perseid meteoroid flies through space at 133,200 mph, Space.com reported. Such speeds mean the Perseids can reach temperatures of 3,000 degrees Fahrenheit. Meteoroids fire up as they enter through Earth’s atmosphere, flying by at 37 miles per second.
Most of the meteoroids are very small, about the size of a grain of sand, Space.com’s reporting continued. When they enter Earth’s atmosphere, where they become meteors, almost none of the fragments hit the ground. If one does, it’s called a meteorite.
Those eager to see the meteor shower should head out to parts of the Bay State with little to no light pollution. Places such as Petersham State Forest in Worcester County or Cape Cod National Seashore in Barnstable County are two locations among others listed on Go Astronomy’s Dark Skies page where stargazing is ideal, weather permitting.
The remnants of Tropical Storm Debby left most of Massachusetts cloudy and wet on Friday, but these conditions are not expected to last. Any rain is expected to end Saturday morning after sunrise, though showers could linger in parts of the Cape and Islands, according to the National Weather Service. Clouds and low humidity should remain.
Forecasters expect little to no precipitation Sunday through Wednesday, according to a post from the National Weather Service on X. During this time there should be an “extended spell of pleasant midsummer weather with seasonable temperatures and low humidity levels,” forecasters wrote.
Given these conditions, stargazers have ample opportunity to spot the meteor shower’s peak.
