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Science and Innovations

Perseid Meteor Shower Peaks This Weekend

NASA/Flickr

The Perseid meteor shower peaks this weekend, but it’ll be partially washed out by a bright moon. KNAU’s Melissa Sevigny reports on the best times to see it.

Look for meteors late tonight and tomorrow morning in the hours before dawn. They’ll radiate out of the constellation Perseus, which rises in the northeast.

But the appearance of a gibbous moon after ten p.m. will wash out the fainter shooting stars.

Instead, look for the brightly colored fireballs that make the Perseids famous.

This meteor shower occurs annually in August when Earth passes through the debris left by a comet. Most of the shooting stars are formed by specks no bigger than 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.
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