Shooting Stars Out in Full Force This Week

The skies will be bombarded with hundreds of millions of meteors this week, providing the best opportunity of the year to watch “shooting stars.”

The annual Perseid meteor shower will last several days, but the peak viewing time will be in the predawn hours on Tuesday.

Observers who have a clear view of a dark sky, preferably away from city lights, should be able to see up to one meteor a minute, especially after the moon sets at midnight Monday, according to the Griffith Observatory here.

Dust particles from the comet Swift-Tuttle, last seen in 1862, provide the annual shower when Earth passes through the comet’s orbit. The particles burn up with heat from friction as they pass through Earth’s atmosphere.

The meteors, called Perseids because their paths, if traced back, would intersect at the constellation Perseus, will be visible in all parts of the sky, according to Sky and Telescope magazine.

Although the shower will peak early Tuesday morning, many meteors should be visible on a few nights before and after that day, the observatory reported.