Look Up! Up To 80 Meteors Per Hour To Light Up The Sky At Peak Of Shower
MACKINAC CITY (WWJ) - The sky will be illuminated with as many as 80 meteors per hour at the peak of the Perseid meteor shower and will continue to be a night-time show in the sky for several nights in a row.
"Traditionally it kicks off the season of meteor showers," said Mary Stewart Adams, with the Headlands International Dark Sky Park in Emmet County. "So from now, all the way through the end of December, we have almost monthly aberrations of meteor showers."
Adams says the Perseid is the more popular — and considered the best of its kind. She urges Michiganders to come out to watch it and learn more about it at the park, near Mackinac City, where a picnic will be held Tuesday from 9 to 11 p.m. prior to a viewing of the shower.
"What we'll do is provided information about what causes that meteor shower, what is our contemporary understanding of these things, and then what is the story that comes to us through history about meteor showers — just to make it a really culturally rich experience," Adams said.
Spectators are welcome to camp overnight, as well as the following nights, to watch the meteor shower. Adams says to bring a blanket, sleeping bags or camp chairs and dress warm.
Can't make it Up North?
"All you really need is to just lay back and look up," Adams said. "I think it's really important for us — each of us, individually, wherever we find ourselves — to make the effort to get outside and see this phenomenon, because it's happening without us having to do anything about it."
An annual event in the sky for over 2,000 years, the Perseid meteor shower occurs each year in early August as the Earth passes through the orbit of the Swift-Tuttle comet. The best time to see the show is between midnight and 1 a.m.
[Get more information about the Dark Sky Park event HERE].
