CBC News - Technology & Science - Meteor shower to light up weekend ...

Astronomers are promising an exciting celestial light show as the annual Perseid meteor shower reaches its peak this weekend. This year, the meteor shower will light up the skies late Sunday and be at its brightest early Monday from 1 a.m. until 4 a.m. ET, when sky watchers could see 60 to 90 streaks of light per hour, said U.S. astronomer Tom Van Flandern. The Perseid meteor shower is named after Perseus, the constellation from which it first appeared to have come. The meteor shower can best be viewed with the naked eye, away from urban light pollution; Summer shower should be a storm in 20 years Perseids, which look like shooting or falling stars, appear every August as Earth passes close to the Swift-Tuttle comet. Debris from the comet's tail enters Earth's atmosphere and the rocks give off light as they burn up. A meteor shower is dust or debris from the comet's tail, while a storm is the tail itself dipping into the Earth's atmosphere.