This summer, the meteor shower ofPerseids, also known as “Tears of San Lorenzo”, will have its maximum activity on August 12 between 12:00 and 14:30 Universal Time (TU, one more hour in the Canary Islands and two in the Peninsula), at which point an average of 100 meteors per hour is expected. As the maximum will occur during the day, the best time to observe the Perseids will coincide with the nights before and after it, that is, the nights of August 11 to 12 and from 12 to 13, according to the Instituto de Astrofísica de Canarias. (IAC). Although the Moon will be in a waning phase and its brightness should not be an obstacle to the observation of this particular “? Rain”, its proximity to the radiant (area of the sky from which the rain seems to come from a perspective effect), it can make it difficult. For this reason, the optimal observation period will be the first part of the night, once the sky is dark and before the Moon makes its appearance on the horizon, that is, between 10 p.m. and 2 a.m. -3: 00 h of Local Time.
The so-called“Shooting Stars“They 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 nucleus, formed by ice and rocks, it sublimates due to the action of solar radiation and generates the characteristic tails of dust and gas. The resulting stream of particles is dispersed by the orbit of the comet and is crossed each year by the Earth on its way around from the Sun. During this encounter, the dust particles disintegrate as they enter the Earth’s atmosphere at high speed, creating the well-known luminous traces that receive the scientific name of meteors.
Every year around this time our planet crosses the orbit of thecometa 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 located in the constellation of Perseus.
