Year after year, we can count on meteor showers such as the Perseids and Leonids cosmic light shows.The Perseids meteor Shower peaks in the night of August 11, and into the morning on August 12.Meteor shower peaks. The reason these reoccurring meteor showers are so common is because of what you actually see when you look at a meteor shower.Why are meteor showers such as the Perseids so prevalent? Space isn't empty, as you might think. It is littered with debris, which creates the spectacular meteor showers we look forward each year.Below is the transcript of the video.Narrator: It is rare to see a solar eclipse and it is impossible to predict when an aurora might illuminate the sky. One cosmic light show is something we can always count upon. Meteor showers. They occur at the same time every year, and they have been doing this for centuries. It doesn't take long to create a meteor shower, despite their beauty and brilliance. It takes only three ingredients: the sun, Earth, and a comet.Since the dawn of the solar system, comets have existed for over four-and a half billion years. They were formed from the same disk of gas and dust which created earth and seven other planets. They orbit the sun just like other planets, but this is where their similarities end. While most planets orbit the sun in circular orbits, comets travel through the solar system on elliptical paths. For an example, see Halley's Comet. It is currently beyond Neptune's orbit. It will travel approximately three billion miles towards the inner reaches our solar system over the next 50-years. In 2061, it will fly past Earth.It's these encounters that make meteor showers possible. As a comet approaches our inner solar system, its radiation heats up the ice beneath the surface. When that ice becomes a vapor, it produces powerful outbursts and gas, sometimes sending hundreds of tonnes of material into the air every second. This creates a bright stream of debris known as the comet tail, or coma. It can span hundreds to thousands of kilometers. Space is filled with comet tail debris, which our planet passes through every year. The debris hits our atmosphere at speeds of over 100,000 miles per hour, burning the fragments that are four-and-a half billion years old in seconds. These bright flashes of light are what we call a meteor shower.Some meteor showers are more impressive than others. They can produce anywhere from a handful to over 100 meteors per hour. Even the same meteor shower may vary from one year to another. It all depends on how many pieces of debris we collect as we travel through the tail. However, comet tails follow the same path that the comet, so they pass through the exact same spot on Earth's orbit. This is why we see the same meteor showers each year at the same times. For example, at the end of October we pass through Halley's Comet that gives us the Orionids meteor Shower. Every August, we also pass through Swift-Tuttle’s tail, which we recognize as the Perseids meteor Shower. Meteor showers are not only for October and August. They can also occur all year. Check your calendar to find out when the next meteor shower will be in your area.NOTE FROM THE EDITOR: This article was published originally on August 10, 2018.
