Dark skies due to a nearly invisible moon made this year’s Perseid meteor shower an especially star-studded event, astronomers said. At its peak, up to 100 shooting stars per hour streaked across the sky around the world – more than one a minute. Viewing was easier this year because the moon’s glow has not interfered with meteor-watching as it was approaching its darkest or ‘new’ phase. The Perseids – one of the biggest meteor showers we can see – occur every year in the late summer. Meteor showers happen when the Earth moves through fields of debris floating around in space. The Perseids come from comet Swift-Tuttle, a big ball of ice and rock that sheds pieces of dusty debris as it orbits around the sun, Aljazeera reports.
Source: Central Asian News Services