Space, the final frontier. These are the bloggings of the stargazer Jim-E. His on-going mission, to report on all spacey stuff, to seek out new stories and interesting articles, to boldly blog what no-blog has blogged before.
Bloggers log, August 2016; this month it may seem as if the sky is falling. This is due to a massive meteor shower that will be visible in the UK that peaks on Friday 12th August and will be visible until the 24th.
The Perseid meteor shower is set to be the largest for a decade and will light up the nights sky. Meteor showers we’ve experienced in recent years have lasted a couple of nights and have consisted of around 50 ‘shooting stars’ every hour. Perseid could provide between 150 and 200 visible meteors an hour.
Now don’t worry, there is little to no chance that one of these space rocks will make it through the atmosphere and strike the Earth. In fact, most aren’t even made of rock. The majority will be made up of ice particles and will, along with the rocky ones, provide a stellar show as they disintegrate in the atmosphere.
The good news is you should be able to see the celestial fireworks show anywhere in the Northern Hemisphere.
The bad news is you’ll have to stay up very late or get up extremely early to see it. The shower will become visible from 1am until the onset of dawn each night. To get the best view, it’s recommended you set yourself up away from large towns and cities where the light pollution is lesser. But it’s sure to be worth the possible sleep deprivation.
If you manage to get a video or a photo of this celestial display, please share it with us on social media.
