Every year our planet is treated to a couple of great meteor showers and one of them is coming right up. The Perseid meteor shower lasts from July 17th through August 24th as we glide through the tail of the Swift-Tuttle comet.
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00:04 Every year our planet is treated to a couple of great meteor showers, and one of them is coming up.
00:09 The Perseid meteor shower lasts from July 17th through August 24th, as we glide through the tail of the Swift-Tuttle comet.
00:16 While you'll probably be able to spot a few meteors each night during that period, experts now predict that on August 13th the event will peak.
00:23 It's called the Perseid meteor shower because all of the meteors tend to originate in the direction of the Perseus constellation.
00:29 Experts say that near the apex of the shower, you can likely see upwards of 60 to 70 of them every hour,
00:35 with Science Alert reporting that in 2016 the peak saw some 200 meteors an hour.
00:40 And this year the shower also peaks while the moon is particularly dim.
00:44 The Swift-Tuttle comet is a 16-mile-wide solar system traveler, which passed by our planet last back in 1992.
00:50 It won't be within eyesight of Earthlings again until 2126.
00:54 However, it's still out there shedding debris in orbit around the sun.
00:57 Meanwhile, we get to see its remnants every year.
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