Every August, Earth moves through a debris cloud left by the comet 109P/Swift-Tuttle. This creates the meteor shower known as The Perseids. It’s the strongest regular meteor shower, with an anticipated 80 meteors per hour at the peak time.
This year however, things are just right so that for about an hour at the true peak they expect 240 per hour. Peak time is 4:18am EDT tomorrow, 12 Aug 2005. it should be good all night though. It’s raining right now, I hope it clears up.
I don’t know if I’ll get up at 4 to see them, but I’ll probably peek outside before bed.
You can get more detail and history at this article on space.com.
It was pretty darn amazing from the darkened skies of Molokai 🙂
I saw these a couple of years ago. We headed out for an all-night star party with a nice telescope (thanks Pepperdine U!) and watched. It was absolutely fascinating.
Unfortunately, I only learned about this year’s display after the fact. I’d love to have seen them again… 🙁