The annual Perseid meteor shower reaches its peak this weekend, sending bright trails of light streaking across the night sky.
The Perseids — one of the biggest meteor showers we can see _ occur every year in the late summer. Meteor showers happen when the Earth moves through fields of debris floating around in space. The Perseids come from comet Swift-Tuttle, a big ball of ice and rock that sheds pieces of dusty debris as it orbits around the sun. When the Earth passes by, those bits get caught in our atmosphere and burn up, creating the streaking lights.
The Perseids can appear anywhere in the sky. So just “lie on your back, look away from the moon and take in as much sky as you can,” Cooke said.The Associated Press Health and Science Department receives support from the Howard Hughes Medical Institute’s Science and Educational Media Group. The AP is solely responsible for all content.
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