A Perseid seen in August 2010 above the four enclosures of the European Southern Observatory’s Very Large Telescope at Paranal, Chile. Credit: ESO / S. Guisard. Click for a larger image
12 Aug evening -13 August morning sees the annual maximum of the Perseid meteor shower. Meteors (‘shooting stars’) are the result of small particles, some as small as a grain of sand, entering Earth’s atmosphere at high speed. The tail of the Comet Swift-Tuttle, which last passed near Earth in 1992, leaves such debris in Earth’s path. On entering the atmosphere, these particles heat the air around them, causing the characteristic streak of light seen from the ground. This shower of meteors appears to originate from a single point, called a ‘radiant’, in the constellation of Perseus, hence the name.
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