NEW YORK (AP) — The Perseid summer light show is back — and viewing conditions are especially promising for the Northern Hemisphere.The meteor shower’s peak Wednesday night into Thursday morning coincides with a total solar eclipse across Spain, Iceland and Greenland and a six-planet parade — though the best time to view the fireballs will come after totality.As many as 50 to 100 meteors per hour may be visible under ideal conditions, according to NASA. The American Meteor Society estimates 30 to 50 meteors per hour could be seen from rural regions. Random meteors are visible in dark skies on any given night. Meteor showers tend to put on dazzling celestial shows and happen at predictable times every year when the Earth plows through trails of debris left behind by comets and, sometimes, asteroids. Those remnants collide with Earth’s atmosphere at extremely high speeds, producing streaks of light known as shooting stars.
The Perseids are debris from comet 109P/Swift-Tuttle, an icy ball that orbits the sun every 133 years and isn’t scheduled for a return visit until 2125. Observations of this meteor shower date back over 2,000 years. The Perseids are a perennial favorite because they tend to produce brilliant fireballs. Summer temperatures also make this shower popular.
