If you're a night owl, and you're up at 3 a.m. Aug. 12, and you look up into the night sky and notice hundreds of meteors streaking across the sky, there's no need to worry — it's only debris left by Comet Swift-Tuttle.
This marks the peak of the Perseid meteor shower, when the debris from Swift-Tuttle burns up in our atmosphere and creates quite the light show, with up to 200 meteors per hour, said Tyler August, science communicator and resident astronomer at Science North.
“We could see up to 200 meters an hour if we're in a perfectly dark sky location, which is extremely unusual for this meteor shower,” August said. “Usually, we see 50 to 60 meteors an hour.”
At 3 a.m., Sudbury is basically pointed into the meteor stream.
“The meteors are going to be front and centre in the sky coming out of the constellation Perseus,” August said.
Each year around this time, Perseid meteors light up the sky; however, super computers tell us this year will be an exception year due to the alignment of the planets and by Earth passing through a thicker stream of debris than usual, August said.
“If you're really into this stuff, it's really worth getting up for, if it's clear of course.” he said.
Science North will wait until the evening of Aug. 12 to host a star party. The forecast for that time is still 100 meteors an hour, but in Sudbury, with its lights, August estimates maybe 60 an hour will be seen.
“That's still one a minute, and that's still good,” he said.
The star party begins at 8 p.m. at Dynamic Earth. August will give a brief lecture on everything you didn't know you needed to know about meteors, while Olathe MacIntyre will talk about citizen science, and how the general public can get involved in doing real science from the comfort of their own home.
Viewing of the meteor shower begins at 9 p.m. There will also be a telescope and binoculars for viewing other astronomical objects.
The star party is weather permitting. Anyone interested in attending can phone the Star Party Hotline at 705-522-3701 ext. 243 on the day of the party (after 5 p.m.) to check if it will go ahead or had to be canceled due to weather.
For more information, visit sciencenorth.ca and look under upcoming events.
