Good viewing conditions expected for peak of this week's Perseid meteor shower

Aug. 8 (UPI) -- The annual Perseid meteor shower is set to peak later this week with ideal viewing conditions anticipated in most places, according to reports.

Commonly known as the "Perseids," the Perseid meteor shower is expected to peak Sunday night and before dawn the next morning on Monday, and is seen annually every four years by mid-July to late August. NASA says the Perseid is considered the "best meteor shower of the year" during its visit.

Two live-streamed watching events will be held beginning at 9 p.m. EDT on both Sunday and Monday to coincide with peak activity. Onlookers may start to see meteors streak through the sky shortly after nightfall but the best time to watch will be after 1 a.m., local time, according to the American Meteor Society.

The moon is expected to be 50% illuminated during the Perseids' peak hours for this particular shower and will set around midnight which will provide for darker skies until the dawn hours.

The Perseid meteor shower occurs when Earth passes through bits of largely rock and ice debris left in the wake of comet Swift-Tuttle, the largest object known that repeatedly passes by Earth.

It last passed by Earth in 1992 and will not again for 102 years from now until 2126.

The best way to see the Perseids is in the darkest possible location with at least 30 minutes needed to let eyes fully adjust to the dark.

However, looking at a bright phone screen or other device "will basically mess up all of the time that you spent trying to let your eyes get dark-adjusted," Hunter Miller, a public observing educator at Chicago's Adler Planetarium in Illinois, told NPR .

"As late as you can be out, the better the views will get, the darker the sky will be," he said. "As the moon sets, you'll have a pretty nice dark sky."

During peak hours, watchers can expect to see an average of up to 100 meteors per hour traveling at speeds of more than 133,000 miles per hour, which is about 85 times the top speed of a jet fighter, according to NASA .

Those speeds are what cause the air in front of the space debris to compress and heat to thousands of degrees which results in the dazzling trails of bright light known as meteors, or "shooting stars".

But even if clouds or other impediments keep viewers from seeing the Perseids at its peak later this week, good views will also be available in the days right before and after peak times, Peter Brown , a meteor researcher at the University of Western Ontario in Canada told NPR.

"With some meteor showers, if you miss the night of the peak or even an hour or two off the peak, there's nothing. Not so with the Perseids," said Brown.

"The Perseids are so large and they're so spread out that you can see them within a day or two of the peak, and you still see a really impressive show."

Annually seen, the next time the Perseids will return will be 2028.

Brown and his colleagues have calculated the very largest of the Perseids, tiny bits and fragments of debris, would only range abut 20 pounds or so and look the size of a soccer ball, although there are many exceptions with much larger ones.

"You're not seeing the actual rock, but you're seeing all the light and heat that's being produced as a result of its passage through the atmosphere," Brown said.

The next meteor shower is the Orionids, which will peak in mid-October.