Perseid Showers tonight! Heads up! Literally!

[Gracie]

How To Watch The Perseid Meteor Shower Online (LIVE VIDEO)

 

[konradv]

Raining cats and dogs here.

 

[Gracie]

Wish it would rain here. But my luck, the fog will roll in.

 

[Mr. H.]

Here we go again!
August 11-14.
Here comes the Perseid meteor shower

 

[Mr. H.]

Here we go again!

Perseid Meteor Shower 2016: Sky Maps and Viewing Guide (Gallery)

 

[waltky]

Granny says it's dem space aliens flingin' space rocks at us again...

Perseid Meteor Shower Provides Opening Act for Solar Eclipse
August 12, 2017 - The Perseid meteor shower peaks every year about this time as the Earth passes debris from the Swift-Tuttle comet, but this year the annual shower will come about a week before a total solar eclipse. The meteor shower, which occurs each year in July or August, will see hundreds of meteors pass through the sky in an event that will be visible around the world.

Experts expect the shower to peak overnight Saturday into Sunday, though the Perseids could be a bit harder to see this year with the moon nearly full. Typical rates are about 80 meteors per hour - last year, 2016, the rate was 150-200 meteors per hour. The shower occurs when the Earth travels through the tail of dust and ice left behind as the Swift-Tuttle comet orbits the sun. The actual meteors are usually no bigger than a grain of sand, but when they hit the Earth’s atmosphere traveling at speeds upwards of 60 kilometers per second, they burn up in a mesmerizing color show of white, orange and green hues.

The Perseids are named after the Perseus constellation, as that is where they appear to originate from in the northeastern night sky. While the Perseids likely will draw large crowds of spectators around the world, those based in the United States will have the chance to see an even bigger astronomical event next week when the U.S. will witness the first total solar eclipse across the country in almost 100 years.

During the eclipse on August 21, the moon will pass between the Earth and the sun, completely blocking the face of the sun and darkening skies all the way from Oregon on the West Coast to South Carolina on the East Coast. While total solar eclipses happen somewhere on Earth almost every year, they mostly occur in remote locations or over the ocean, where few if any people actually witness them. The last time a total eclipse happened over the contiguous U.S. was in 1979.

Perseid Meteor Shower Provides Opening Act for Solar Eclipse

See also:

Star Tau Ceti Has Two Planets in Habitable Zone
August 13, 2017 | WASHINGTON — Scientists from U.S. and Britain have found four planets, slightly larger than Earth, orbiting a star visible with a naked eye.

Using a technique so sensitive that it can measure tiny changes in the light emitted by stars, scientists at University of California Santa Cruz and the University of Hertfordshire detected the planets orbiting the star Tau Ceti, which is 12 light-years from Earth. Two of the planets orbit in the so-called habitable zone, meaning the surface water could possibly exist.

This image of the Paranal platform of the Four Unit Telescopes of the Very Large Telescope was taken right after sunset.​

The changes in light are caused by gravitational pull of the planets orbiting the star. Tau Ceti, in the south of the constellation Cetus, emits light spectrum similar to our sun but is about 25 percent smaller.

The two planets in its habitable zone are larger than Earth, but frequent bombardment by asteroids and comets from the star's massive debris ring make them improbable candidates to sustain life. Observations were done from the Keck Observatory in Hawaii and the European Southern Observatory's Very Large Telescope in Chile.

Star Tau Ceti Has Two Planets in Habitable Zone