Perseid Meteor Shower

The Perseid meteor shower should start tonight for anyone interested in that sort of thing. According to the article the best time to watch in North America will be between midnight and 5am tonight. Although meteors can be seen throughout the night.

Here is a link to an article that explains the origins of the Perseid meteor shower.

http://news.yahoo.com/s/space/20090811/sc_space/strongmeteorshowerexpectedtonight

I did a little research into the Perseid meteor shower and found it quite interesting. Here are a few of the facts I found.

"the Comet Swift-Tuttle, whose debris creates the Perseids is the largest object known to make repeated passes near Earth. It's nucleus is about 6 miles across, roughly equal to the object that wiped out the dinosaurs"

"astronomers calculate that the comet Swift-Tuttle and Earth might experience a cosmic near miss (within 1 million miles) in the year 3044"

"When a Perseid particle enters the atmosphere it compresses the air in front of it which heats up. The meteor in turn can be heated to more than 3,000 degrees fahrenheit. The intense heat vaporizes most meteors, creating what we call shooting stars. Most become visable at around 60 miles."

"the Comet Swift-Tuttle was last seen in 1992, prior to that, it had last been seen in the year it was "discovered" by american astronomers Lewis Swift and Horace Tuttle in 1862"

"the Comet Swift-Tuttle's orbit has been traced back nearly 2000 years and is now thought to be the same comet that was observed in 188AD and possibly even as early as 69 BC"

"the Comet Swift-Tuttle is due back in the year 2126"