BRIT stargazers will have a golden opportunity to watch the Perseid meteor shower tonight.
The spectacular annual display which lights up the night sky is predicted to reach its peak overnight tonight, August 12, with around 100 shooting stars an hour.
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Just how much of a spectacle is actually seen will largely be down to the weather conditions in your area and the amount of light.
Clear skies above will help anyone get a good display although being in a southern location may improve things, according to an expert.
Associate professor of astronomy Daniel Brown at Nottingham Trent University told The Sun that being further south helped with "better longer darker skies".
He said: "The best time to observe would be after midnight tonight when the shower is due to show its peak activity.
Read More on Meteors
"But note that the activity is already good in the days leading up and the week after.
"Also it might well be that we get a secondary peak in the few days after today."
The professor added: "So probably south England might have a bit longer darker nights and the north have the radiant marginally higher in the sky.
"But it really is the weather that will tell you where is best."
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He said: "The rates of 100 per hour are on average, under excellent conditions, and all of them coming from directly above.
"So expect less but also expect some beautiful bright ones as well."
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A Met Office spokesperson said: "Cloud will increase from the west overnight but it will be a slow process and it’s not really until after midnight that cloud cover readily increases across western areas.
"So much of the country will have a good opportunity to view a cloud free sky."
Senior astronomer at the Royal Observatory Greenwich, Dr Ed Bloomer said: “The Perseids should give good viewing a couple of days either side, with local weather and light conditions probably more significant factors than the precise mathematical peak.”
Experts believe the meteors come from between the constellations of Camelopardalis and Persus, from which their name is derived.
It is best to look at them out of the corner of your eye, according to Bloomer.
He said: “Perseus is rising in the north-east as the sun’s going down, and so you want to look maybe more over towards the east.”
Dr Bloomer added that peripheral vision is more sensitive under low-light conditions than central vision
The Perseid meteor shower happens when the Earth hits material shed from the comet 109P/Swift-Tuttle as the planet orbits around the Sun and is best seen in the northern hemisphere.
When fragments, usually no bigger than a grain of sand, reach Earth’s atmosphere the air in front of the particles becomes compressed, producing heat and causing the fragments to burn up.
That results in bright, colourful, streaks across the sky.
Dr Bloomer said: “[The comet] is on this big, long 133-year orbit around the Sun, and it’s essentially debris that’s trailing off from behind that – so Swift-Tuttle makes its orbit, but the Earth then essentially crashes into that path year after year.”
Anyone wanting to catch a glimpse of the celestial show is advised to go out at night and head to a dark area, away from street lighting and they should also avoid looking at their phones.
Ideally, people should lay on the grass where you can get a clear view of the whole night sky and look upwards.
Give your eyes around 30 minutes to adjust to the darkness.
Anyone who is particularly keen on getting the best display, they can download a stargazing app, find the Perseus constellation and look in that direction.
What is a meteor shower?
Here's what you need to know...
- During a meteor shower, fireballs appear to streak across the sky
- This happens because pieces of debris are rapidly burning up as they eneter Earth’s atmosphere
- That debris is often left behind by a collision between two space objects, like a planet or comet
- The Orionids shower is debris from Halley’s Comet, a huge chunk of ice orbiting the Sun
- Many meteor showers are repeated
- They occur at a height of around 62 miles
Dr Bloomer said: “You might get lucky and see a fireball, [that’s] a bit of debris about the size of your fist coming through the atmosphere – that can go [on] for five, 10 seconds.
“You might even see it break up, and that’s pretty special.
“But the majority of these things are little flashes.”
He added: “It’s not fireworks.
“But you’re sort of seeing the mechanics of the solar system at work, which is quite an interesting thing.”
What's the difference between an asteroid, meteor and comet?
Here's what you need to know, according to Nasa...
- Asteroid:An asteroid is a small rocky body that orbits the Sun. Most are found in the asteroid belt (between Mars and Jupiter) but they can be found anywhere (including in a path that can impact Earth)
- Meteoroid:When two asteroids hit each other, the small chunks that break off are called meteoroids
- Meteor:If a meteoroid enters the Earth’s atmosphere, it begins to vapourise and then becomes a meteor. On Earth, it’ll look like a streak of light in the sky, because the rock is burning up
- Meteorite:If a meteoroid doesn’t vapourise completely and survives the trip through Earth’s atmosphere, it can land on the Earth. At that point, it becomes a meteorite
- Comet:Like asteroids, a comet orbits the Sun. However rather than being made mostly of rock, a comet contains lots of ice and gas, which can result in amazing tails forming behind them (thanks to the ice and dust vaporizing)
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