The popularly known as“tears of Saint Lawrence”can be seen withgreater intensity the night of August 12 to 13, once its radiant, located in the northeast direction, more specifically in the constellation of Perseus, rises over the horizon at around 11:30 p.m. (in the Canary Islands), according to the Instituto de Astrofísica de Canarias. TheMoon will be in waxing phaseand it will be hidden at the moment in which the meteors begin to be seen, so it will not be an obstacle for its observation.
The so-called shooting stars are actually small dust particles of different sizes, some smaller than grains of sand, that comets leave along their orbits around the Sun. When a comet approaches the inner regions of the solar system, its core, made up of ice and rocks, sublimates due to the action of solar radiation and generates the characteristic dust and gas tails. The resulting stream of particles is dispersed by the comet’s orbit and is traversed each year by the Earth on its way around the Sun. During this encounter, the dust particles disintegrate as they enter the Earth’s atmosphere at high speed, creating the known luminous traces that receive the scientific name of meteors.
Every year around this timeour planet crosses the orbit of comet Swift-Tuttle, which has a period of 133 years and which passed near the Sun for the last time in 1992. The meteor shower that occurs usually has its maximum activity between August 12 and 13, although the phenomenon is noticeable in less intensity from the second half of July until the end of August. The name of Perseids is due to the fact that its radiant is in the constellation of Perseus.
