According to NASA meteor expert Bill Cooke, the Perseids are perhaps the most popular meteor shower of the year. They will be in "outburst" in 2016, which means they'll appear at double the usual rates.
"This year, instead of seeing about 80 Perseids per hour, the rate could top 150 and even approach 200 meteors per hour," Cooke said. It's the first such outburst since 2009.
What causes the Perseids?
Comet Swift-Tuttle is the largest object known to repeatedly pass by Earth; its nucleus is about 16 miles (26 kilometers) wide. It last passed nearby Earth during its orbit around the sun in 1992, and the next time will be in 2126. But it won't be forgotten in the meantime, because Earth passes through the dust and debris it leaves behind every year, creating the annual Perseid meteor shower.
When you sit back to watch a meteor shower, you're actually seeing the pieces of comet debris heat up as they enter the atmosphere and burn up in a bright burst of light, streaking a vivid path across the sky as they travel at 37 miles (59 km) per second. When they're in space, the pieces of debris are called "meteoroids," but when they reach Earth's atmosphere, they're designated as "meteors." If a piece makes it all the way down to Earth without burning up, it graduates to "meteorite." Most of the meteors in the Perseids are much too small for that; they're about the size of a grain of sand.
This year, the comet's path is particularly crowded, which means the meteor shower is in "outburst" — a condition that occurs when the debris clumps together because of the influence of the giant planets, Cooke said.
"This Perseid outburst coming up in August — you could think of it in simplistic terms as Jupiter's gravity causing the particles to concentrate in front of Earth's path," Cooke said. "That doesn't happen with all showers, but since the Perseids have an orbit that takes them well past Jupiter, they can pass close enough to Jupiter that its gravity can mess with them."
The outbursts are irregular, and scientists have only had the computational power to predict what years they'd occur since the late 1990s.
When to see them?
Earth will pass through the path of Comet Swift-Tuttle from July 17 to Aug. 24, with the shower's peak — when Earth passes through the densest, dustiest area — occurring on August 12. That means you'll see the most meteors in the shortest amount of time near that peak.
All you need to catch the show is darkness, somewhere comfortable to sit and a bit of patience.
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When: August 12th - 8pm till Midnight (possibly later if the show is still good).
Where: Forest Falls SDA Church, 40551 Valley of the Falls Dr, Forest Falls, CA 92339.
What to Bring: Camping chairs, snacks, warm clothes (just in case), telescopes and cameras could also be fun.
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So, come join us for a fun evening! The Forest Falls SDA Church has given us permission to use their parking lot, to set up chairs, and watch the skies! We'll even have someone in attendance who can give us use of the church restroom should anyone need it. We'll have a table for snacks and even hot cocoa if we can swing it!