Perseid Meteor Shower 2023: When It Is and How to Watch the Peak

Astronomers say sky watchers should prepare for a visual treat this weekend as the annual Perseid meteor shower peaks Saturday evening into Sunday morning.

“This is the year to see it,” University of Warwick astronomer Don Pollacco said, adding that a waning crescent moon will ensure the night sky will be very dark, which increases the number of visible meteors.

A moon that is about 10% full means people can spot even some of the faintest meteors, according to Bill Cooke, lead astronomer for the National Aeronautics and Space Administration’s Meteoroid Environment Office at Marshall Space Flight Center in Huntsville, Ala.

“Last year, the moon was full and conditions sucked,” he said.

The Perseids, which happen every summer and peak in mid-August, are among the best of the 30 or so annual meteor showers, according to NASA astronomers.  

The celestial spectacle is characterized by lots of fireballs—exceptionally bright, colorful meteors that leave persistent streaks of light in the night sky. Despite sometimes being called shooting stars, meteors are actually bits of ice, rock and dust that are vaporized as they travel through Earth’s atmosphere.  

Weather permitting, sky watchers will start seeing meteors on Saturday around 11 p.m. local time, Cooke said. The rate of meteors per hour will increase throughout the night. 

“They will be best just before dawn,” around 3:30 a.m. to 4:30 a.m. local time, he said. Cooke added that people should expect to see a Perseid every minute or so, or roughly 40 to 50 an hour during the peak, though rates could be higher under ideal viewing conditions.

For optimal gazing, experts recommend lying on your back or in a reclining chair. Give your eyes time to adjust to the darkness, and try to take in as much of the sky as possible for as long as possible. There is no need for binoculars or a telescope; these instruments limit how much you can see at once. And don’t look at a cellphone screen, as the bright light can impact night vision.

The Perseids are best viewed from the Northern Hemisphere. The farther south you go, the fewer Perseids you see, Cooke said. That is because the radiant—the region in the sky from which the meteors appear to emanate—is a point in the constellation Perseus. This northern constellation sits in the sky below the W-shaped Cassiopeia, and the closer sky watchers are to having Perseus overhead, the better the show, he added.

That said, it is important to not look directly at Perseus, according to Pollacco. “Meteors that are close to the radiant will have very short streaks,” he said. “As you move farther away, the streaks will be longer.”

Meteors strike Earth’s atmosphere when the planet’s journey around the sun takes us through the dusty debris trail of a comet or asteroid. In the case of the Perseids, Earth is moving through the debris left behind by Comet Swift-Tuttle, a 16-mile-wide comet discovered more than 150 years ago. The peak occurs when our planet moves through the densest part of the comet’s debris trail.

Pieces of Swift-Tuttle’s debris, which can range from the size of a grain of sand to a pea, hit the atmosphere at speeds of about 37 miles per second, or 133,000 miles an hour. The heat generated by the intense friction between the debris and molecules in the atmosphere causes the bits to burn up.

“Where the streak ends, that’s basically where the dust is vaporized,” Pollacco said.

Write to Aylin Woodward at [email protected]