The Perseids meteor shower has left striking aerial displays across the world after reaching its peak last weekend.
Away from the lights of the big cities, the celestial light show is even clearer, with stunning photos being taken at some of the United States' national parks.
"So beautiful to see the Perseid meteor shower last week at our State Forest State Park!" said Colorado Parks and Wildlife in a post on Facebook on Friday, sharing photos from the previous week.
At the shower's peak last Sunday at 4 a.m. ET, there were as many as 100 fireballs per hour. The Perseids will continue until August 24, having started over a month before, on July 17.
Meteor showers like this one occur when the Earth passes through streams of cosmic debris left behind by comets and asteroids. The debris that produces the Perseids comes from the comet Swift-Tuttle.
This comet orbits the sun every 133 years, leaving a plume of dust in its path. As our planet passes through that patch of space, the minuscule pieces of dust collide with our atmosphere, burning up at high speeds as they fall to Earth.
"Meteors, or shooting stars, are the result of small pieces of natural space debris entering the Earth's atmosphere at high speed—60 kilometers [37 miles] a second in this case—and burning up high in the atmosphere, around 80 kilometers above the ground," Robert Massey, deputy executive director at the U.K.'s Royal Astronomical Society, previously told Newsweek.
Most of these pieces of debris are barely larger than a grain of sand, so nearly none of this space debris hits the Earth, according to Utah's Arches National Park.
The Perseids meteor shower gets its name from its location in the night sky, around the constellation Perseus.
The meteor shower is particularly vivid this year because of the phase of the moon.
"It is currently almost a new moon, only illuminated about 6.5 percent, and it is rising and setting mostly within daytime hours, adding to the dark environment for better spotting," Utah's Zion National Park said in a post on Facebook.
To view the shower, go out when there are as few clouds as possible in a dark, open area away from city lights. Avoid looking at light sources, including a phone, for around 20 minutes beforehand to get your eyes used to the darkness. This will help you spot the fainter meteors.
Do you have a tip on a science story that Newsweek should be covering? Do you have a question about the Perseids? Let us know via science@newsweek.com.
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Newsweek is committed to challenging conventional wisdom and finding connections in the search for common ground.
About the writer
Pandora Dewan is a Senior Science Reporter at Newsweek based in London, UK. Her focus is reporting on science, health ... Read more
