One of the heaviest meteor showers of the year will peak Thursday night through Friday morning, but will Chicago-area residents be able to catch the show?
The Perseid meteor shower, which occurs annually as Earth moves through the path left by Comet Swift-Tuttle, can result in 60 to 100 meteors per hour at its peak.
Stargazers need to do a few things to give themselves the maximum chance of seeing it. Here’s what we know so far.
expectations
As of Wednesday afternoon, the forecast for Thursday night through Friday morning skies remains mostly clear, meaning cloud cover is unlikely to be a major obstacle to meteor shower viewing.
challenges
Even with clear skies, there would be at least one obstacle: the Sturgeon Supermoon. The last supermoon of 2022 will be in the sky from Thursday night through Friday morning, and the full moon’s bright light could remove some of the faint streaks of light in the sky from the Perseids.
How to overcome this problem
Luckily for those interested in spotting meteors, experts say there are a few things you can do to see them.
First, the peak indicator will occur after midnight, meaning that the meteor shower’s “radiant point” will be higher on the eastern horizon and the moon will be lower on the western horizon, making for darker skies.
In addition to getting out and looking east early Friday morning, experts say stargazers should try to get as far away from the city lights as possible to catch the show.
at last, Administrators at the Adler Planetarium Residents are advised to allow sufficient time to acclimate to the darkness. It can take 20 to 30 minutes for the human eye to adjust to the darkness, and once that is done you will likely be able to see several meteors per minute.
Learn more about Perseids
Meteor showers are called the Perseids because they appear to originate from the same spot in the night sky as the constellation Perseus, according to NASA.
The Bath also differs from other annual events, including the Geminids and Quadrantids, in that it takes place in the summer when it’s warmer and generally more fun to sit outside. These last rains occur in the months of December and January respectively.
Finally, astronomers recommend looking east to see the most meteorites because that side of the horizon is on the leading edge of the Earth’s rotation about its own axis and therefore catches more meteorites than the other side.