How to watch the Perseid meteor shower from MSU statenews.com - get the latest breaking news, showbiz & celebrity photos, sport news & rumours, viral videos and top stories from statenews.com Daily Mail and Mail on Sunday newspapers.
The Perseid meteor shower is an annual event occurring Aug. 12 to 13 this year, with peak activity anticipated on Sunday night. The shower is the result of debris from the Swift-Tuttle comet that falls through our atmosphere creating a streak of light. Shannon Schmoll, director of the Abrams Planetarium and professor in the Department of Physics and Astronomy in the College of Natural Science at Michigan State University, explains why the upcoming Perseid meteor shower is a great opportunity to see an object from space closer than usual at a safe distance and with your naked eye.
Named after the constellation Perseus, the Perseids meteor shower originates from the debris field of the comet Swift-Tuttle, which orbits the sun every 133 years.