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Perseid meteor shower peaks this weekend

The Perseids Meteor Shower.
Preston Dyches
/
NASA
The Perseids Meteor Shower.

The most anticipated meteor shower of the year will put on a show this weekend. Here's how to see it in northern Arizona.

The Perseids are expected to peak on Sunday night into Monday morning. The best time to watch for shooting stars is after the quarter moon sets around midnight, and into the dark hours before dawn.

In ideal conditions under a cloudless sky, stargazers can expect to see dozens of meteors an hour. They’ll cross all parts of the sky but will appear to radiate from the constellation of Perseus in the northeast. Watch especially for the bright, colorful fireballs for which the Perseids are famous.

The shower will diminish over the next few weeks. It’s caused by the Earth’s orbit passing through the debris left by a comet. Most shooting stars are the size of a grain of sand.

Melissa joined KNAU's team in 2015 to report on science, health, and the environment. Her work has appeared nationally on NPR and been featured on Science Friday. She grew up in Tucson, Arizona, where she fell in love with the ecology and geology of the Sonoran desert.