Gadgetory

it's that time of year again the annual Perseid meteor shower gets underway every August so if you look up at the night sky tonight you'll be able to catch one of Earth's most famous cosmic light shows the shower is the result of our planet getting a little too close to some Comet dust common in question is swift-tuttle which orbits the Sun once every 133 years whenever swift-tuttle swings by the inner solar system the immense heat from the Sun causes particles to eject from the comet these particles create a stream of debris that stretches across swift-tuttle orbital path and once a year earth crosses this debris field causing Swift Tuttle's leftovers to slam into our planet's atmosphere the result a bunch of tiny lights streaking through our sky so why do we call it the Perseid meteor shower if this is all swift-tuttle fault it's because these tiny meteors seem to originate from the constellation Perseus in any given year you can expect to see around 60 to 80 meteors an hour when the meteor shower is at its peak but this year the shower may get a healthy boost thanks to our buddy Jupiter every so often Jupiter makes his closest approach to Swift Tuttle's debris field and its immense of gravitational field tugs the particle stream closer to earth typically our planet just skims the debris but experts think we'll be even closer to the particles this year that means we could potentially see up to 200 meteors an hour according to NASA the best time to start watching the shower is going to be just after midnight wherever you are you know the drill if you want to get the best view of a light show in the sky you're gonna need to get away from light here on earth so city goers like myself may want to get to a park but if nearby light pollution is too intense or there's too much cloud cover you don't have to miss out entirely you'll still be able to catch some meteors tomorrow night and NASA plans to broadcast the Perseids both tonight and tomorrow on its public Ustream channel which we've linked below happy stargazing want to know it's like to live among these falling stars check out our video with NASA astronaut scott kelly who just finished up a year in space you think watching a meteor shower is cool check out what it's like to watch a rocket travel to space and then land back on earth