Perseids meteor rain – then you can see all the stars fall

Meteor showers occur once a year for the Perseids, starting around August 10. The Earth then crosses an orbit with innocuous meteor pebbles, which are spewed by Comet Swift-Tuttle.

In orbit there is cometary dust rushing into Earth’s atmosphere at a speed of at least 30 kilometers per second, says Peter Linde, associate professor of astronomy and president of the Swedish Astronomical Society.

In the upper atmosphere, meteorite pebbles are heated and gasified by friction with air particles.

Then it lights up and forms a light path that can be seen for a few seconds. This is what we consider the fall of a star.

Amazing optical phenomena

The larger the stones, the clearer the lines in the sky. A small pill is enough to see from the ground.

They are usually small millimeter granules. In rare cases, large stones that can create photogenic phenomena can be even more spectacular.

Between Wednesday and Friday next week, activity culminates. Under ideal conditions, up to 60 stars can be observed per hour, one per minute.

Then the Tycho Brahe Observatory in Malmö is open to the public, who can view the night sky from 9 pm until later in the night.

It’s about seeing as much of the sky as possible. It’s best to do this with the naked eye, says Peter Linde, who is also president of the Tycho Brahe Society, which runs the observatory.

The comet is approaching

Waterfalls can be seen all over the land, but the waterfalls you see for yourself are local. I think you see meteors within 50 km of where you are now, says Peter Lindy.

– If it’s not really dark, you only see the brightest.

Comet Swift-Tuttle passes through our inner solar system every 133 years. In rare cases, it comes close to the ground. In 4479, it was estimated that it is located at a distance of about six million kilometers. Then the probability of a collision with the Earth is estimated at one in a million.

– Peter Lindy says that the risk of hitting the ground is basically non-existent.

Recommend to everyone who has the opportunity to sit on a chair with a blanket over it and be mesmerized by the starry sky.

– Some experience of how small we are in relation to everything out there. I have a different opinion, we are very special about everything there is because we can see and enjoy it, says Peter Lindy and continues:

– We are intelligent beings. We have a kilogram and a half of matter in the brain that is highly organized. But it’s just one thing. It came from space and formed in the middle of the stars.