Look up! Perseid meteor shower peaks Friday night

Posted August 12, 2022 8:59 pm.

Friday night is the night — the annual Perseid meteor shower that gives stargazers a summer show will be at its best and brightest.

Active from July to September, the shower peaks on Aug. 12. The program coordinator from the H.R. MacMillan Space Centre says it happens because the Earth is passing through the wake of a long-pass comet.

“We call it a meteor shower, although in real terms, it just means an increased period of meteors that you might see in our sky, or shooting stars [is] what other people may refer them to,” Michael Unger told CityNews.

According to the American Meteor Society, the comet responsible for the show is 109P/Swift-Tuttle.

“Meteors hit the Earth all the time. It’s just that during these times when the Earth is moving through the wake, is when we see that increased period, which is why we call it a meteor shower.”

The brightness of Aug. 11 full moon may hinder people’s ability to view the shower, however, Unger says the best places to view the show will still be in dark parks around the Lower Mainland.

“So, tonight, tomorrow night, even on Sunday, and even next week, anytime that you can get out to a dark park around midnight, and in those pre-dawn hours between midnight and two, those would be like the best times, but anytime after sunset to sunrise,” he explained.

Unger says people in the Northern Hemisphere are particularly interested and attracted to the Perseid meteor shower, because it usually happens in August.

“It’s a time when lots of people are going out camping. You’re out there already looking up at the stars. It’s good weather to stay up late. … And you can be out there with a t-shirt, laying back on a blanket sipping a hot cocoa or something. And it’s a really magical time to be looking at the stars.”

Meteor showers are a great chance for folks to think about the universe, Unger notes, and to think about how meteors come from a comet.

“It could have potentially seeded life here on Earth, so thinking about meteor showers, and thinking about what meteor showers really are,” Unger said. “And for people when they make a wish, they’re really making these wishes upon the very basis of where life may have come from in the first place, which I think is a really special thing to do.”

Metro Vancouver, the regional body, is hosting a meteor shower watching event on Saturday, Aug. 13 at Aldergrove Regional Park. Tickets can be purchased online at EventBrite.

With files from John Ackermann

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