Meteor showers visible this week

Here’s one for night sky watchers, if weather permits.

Meteor showers will illuminate the heavens this week as the Earth runs into a narrow trail of debris left behind by the comet Swift-Tuttle.

The debris come from the comet’s 1862 return to the inner solar system and its less spectacular reappearance in 1992. The Comet Swift-Tuttle was independently discovered by Lewis Swift and Horace Parnell Tuttle in July 1862.

The debris from Swift-Tuttle is responsible for the Perseid meteor shower visible every July and August, according to the Philippine Atmospheric, Geophysical and Astronomical Services Administration (Pagasa).

"The famous Perseids meteor shower will be observed with its peak in the early morning hours of Aug. 12 (Thursday)," Pagasa said.

This peak might only last 15 minutes, it added.

The Perseids meteor shower radiates out from the constellation Perseus located in the eastern horizon in the month of August, Pagasa said. Constellation Perseus is between the constellations Cassiopeia and Pleiades.

"Under the most favorable sky condition, there may be 75 meteors per hour. They are easiest to see if there is no moonlight and when there is no light pollution at all," Pagasa said.

According to astronomers, Perseid dust particles are tiny - most of them no bigger than grains of sand - as they travel fast at 59,000 kilometers per hour.

"Even a tiny dust speck can become a brilliant meteor when it hits the (Earth’s) atmosphere at that speed," astronomers said.

Not to worry about getting these specks in your eye, astronomers assured the public, as the fragile grains disintegrate before they can even touch ground.