The Perseid Meteor Shower Is Happening Soon—When and How to Watch It

The Perseid meteor shower, which occurs annually from mid-July to late August, will reach its peak this year on the night of August 11 and the wee hours of August 12. If you're lucky, you could see as many as 100 meteors blaze through the sky per hour, according to NASA. Here's when, where, and how to catch the best show—plus a scientific explainer about the celestial phenomenon.

The Best Time to Watch the Perseids
You'll see the most meteors after midnight and before dawn on August 11–12. The meteor shower is active from July 14 to September 1 this year, but the peak night is when it's most intense. While you might see some meteors as soon as the sky is dark, the best visibility happens after the moon has set, around 12 a.m. If you're not free on August 11, or if it's cloudy or rainy, you can try for a good viewing on the night of August 10 or 12 instead (the shower will be close enough to its peak that there will still be a bunch of meteors).

The Best Place to Watch the Perseids
The best place to watch is somewhere without light pollution, if you can find it. Street lamps and other electric lights obscure our view of the night sky, so parks and rural areas tend to be darkest. To locate dark sites near you, check out the search tool from the nonprofit DarkSky International. And avoid spots with trees or buildings blocking the sky—especially the northeastern part of it, where the shower's "radiant" is (more on that below).

The Best Way to Watch the Perseids
No need for binoculars or telescopes; just look with the naked eye. The Perseid shower is known for its big, bright meteors, which streak across the whole sky. When you get to your dark spot, give your eyes about 30 minutes to adjust, and bring along a flashlight for safety. You might also want a comfortable chair or blanket to lounge on, as well as a sweater or warm drink if the night gets cool.
The Science of Meteor Showers
What exactly are you looking at, anyway? Read on for a brief explainer and some interesting facts about meteors.

What are meteors?
Meteors happen when the rocks and dust in outer space—called meteoroids—collide with the earth's atmosphere at high speeds. The friction heats up the meteoroid, which causes the gases around the meteoroid to glow, leaving a streak of light in our sky (what we call a meteor).

Space is full of meteoroids—pieces of comets, asteroids, planets, or even the moon that shed during orbit or get knocked off through collision. They range in size from a grain of sand to meter-length boulders. On any given night, as they crash into our orbit, they create meteors, and it's possible to see several an hour. (The brightest ones will be big, fast pieces.) When you spot a "shooting star," that's what you're seeing.

What is a meteor shower?
A meteor shower is when dozens or even hundreds of meteors fall an hour. This occurs when the earth passes through a particularly large number of meteoroids, usually because we're crossing paths with a comet.

The Perseid meteor shower comes from the Swift-Tuttle comet, a big ball of rock, dust, and ice that takes 133 years to orbit the sun. As it travels, its sheds a stream of meteoroids (the "tail" of the comet), and we pass through this tail every summer and get a cool view.

Meteor "storms"—when a thousand or more meteors fall an hour—are rarer and difficult to predict, though some scientists think the 2028 Perseids will produce a storm.

What are the best meteor showers?
Besides the Perseids, popular showers occur at predictable times every year. Here are some upcoming ones:

The Orionids will happen this year from September 26 to November 22, peaking the night of October 20. The meteors come from Halley's comet.

The Leonids will take place from November 3 to December 2, peaking the night of November 17. The meteors come from the Tempel-Tuttle comet. Fun fact: The Leonids are famous for producing storms (unfortunately, none is expected this year). In 1833, there was such a massive storm that people thought the world was ending, and the spectacle prompted scientists to figure out what meteors actually were.

The Geminids will fall from November 19 to December 24, peaking the night of December 13. These come from an asteroid called 3200 Phaethon.

The Lyrids arrive in the spring, from April 15 to April 29, 2025. They'll peak the night of April 21 and come from the comet Thatcher.

How do meteor showers get their names?
Every meteor shower has a "radiant"—a spot in the sky all the meteors appear to rain down from. It's an optical illusion, because the meteors are actually falling in parallel lines across the whole sky, but they seem to converge in the distance at a single location. They're named after this location, which is usually a constellation. So the Perseids seem to fall from the constellation Perseus, the Orionids from Orion, the Leonids from Leo, the Geminids from Gemini, and the Lyrids from Lyra.

Why are meteors different colors?
The color depends on what the meteoroid is made of. Iron gives off a yellow hue when it burns, a calcium-rich meteoroid can look purple, and one with lots of magnesium will be teal. When the nitrogen and oxygen in our atmosphere glow, they form a red streak.

Do meteors ever fall all the way to earth?
Yep! Most meteoroids are so small that they completely combust high up in the sky—30 to 50 miles above the earth's surface—but some large ones partly survive the journey through our atmosphere, and chunks fall to earth. When they land on our planet, they're called meteorites. About 80,000 meteorites have been found so far, mostly in Antarctica. Don't worry: The odds of getting injured by one are extremely small. In fact, only one person has ever been struck. (Ann Hodges, in 1954, was hit in the hip while napping. She survived!) Meteorites are a great way for scientists to study the history of our solar system, as some come from meteoroids that are billions of years old.