Meteors promise great show this weekend

A new-moon night will make conditions ideal for viewing meteor showers this weekend.

By LAUREN POLINSKY

VINDICATOR STAFF REPORTER

YOUNGSTOWN — Astronomy for couch potatoes will be available this weekend just outside everyone’s front door.

One of the two strongest and most reliable meteor showers, known as Perseids, will take place Friday through Monday with its peak being late Sunday night into early Monday morning.

“A deck chair, proper clothing for whatever the weather might be and a dark sky is all you need to see the meteors,” said Patrick Durrell, assistant professor and astronomer in the department of physics and astronomy at Youngstown State University.

Perseids occurs every year around the same time in August, but the astronomer said this year is a big deal because there will not be a moon in the sky, also known as the new-moon phenomenon.

“On the 12th, the moon will rise and set with the sun so the sky will be particularly dark. The darker the sky the more meteors you will see,” Durrell said.

Meteor showers occur when comets, made of ice and dust, pass by the sun and leave a dusty trail. Those particles enter the Earth’s atmosphere when the Earth passes by the sun. The particles instantaneously burn as they enter the atmosphere and create a flash of light.

“People think they are shooting stars, but they are actually just fast-moving dust particles,” Durrell said.

After midnight is best

The particles move at different speeds, but all are flying upward of 20 miles a second. The peak of Perseids occurs at a time when the most meteors will be visible, approximately one every minute. After midnight is the best time to go out to look for the meteors, according to Durrell, because that is when the Earth is turned into them.

This meteor shower will appear to be coming from the constellation Perseus in the eastern part of the sky. However, this is an optical effect, Durrell said — and not to worry, because the meteors will be visible in every part of the sky.

“One of the great things about meteor showers is that you don’t need special equipment to view them. The particles fly across the sky so fast that a telescope or binoculars would be useless,” the astronomer said.

Meteors could be visible starting as early as after midnight tonight, but they will be scattered.

Durrell said quite a few will be flying across the sky late Saturday night and into early Sunday morning. This broad window of opportunity to see Perseids, along with the warm weather and large number of dust particles present, is why it is considered to be the best shower for viewing pleasure.

The only other shower that produces as many meteors as Perseids is December’s Geminids.

“If people want to see a meteor shower, this is the one they should go after,” Durrell said.