From ancient myth to modern wonder: The Perseids meteor shower soars above Earth once more

For thousands of years, humanity has looked up to the sky every August to watch the Perseids meteor shower streak through it in brilliant fashion.

Ancient people interpreted falling meteors as signs of divine intervention, omens or even deities gracing Earth. When a meteor was spotted soaring through the atmosphere not long after Julius Caesar was killed in 44 B.C., ancient Romans interpreted it as a sign that Caesar had ascended into a god-like status.

Today, most people know that meteors aren’t gods making grandiose appearances, but the fascination over these celestial balls of fire remains intact.

Most years, patient skywatchers can expect to see anywhere between 50 and 100 meteors during the Perseid meteor shower. But this year, because of the brightness of the moon, that number will be considerably less.

The waning gibbous phase of the moon washes out faint meteors that are typically visible, meaning people can expect to see only 10 to 20 meteors in the sky per hour.

“The reason for this is most meteors are faint,” said Robert Lunsford, a fireball report coordinator for the American Meteor Society. “So when you have a bright moon like this, it really obscures it and takes a luster off viewing them. There is one way to get around it, though.”

Since the moon doesn’t rise until about 10 p.m., Lunsford said there’s about an hour between sunset and the lunar ascent. Unfortunately during this time, the constellation Perseus, from where most of the meteors appear to emerge, is low in the northern stretch of sky. This means a good majority of the meteors will be shooting downward and obstructed by the horizon.

Lunsford said the meteors that are visible and shoot upward are nothing short of spectacular. Affectionately called Earth grazers, they tend to last considerably longer than an average meteor. While a meteor spotted in the wee hours of the morning might last only half a second, these Earth grazers can stay in the sky for up to five seconds. That might not sound like a lot of time, but that’s a marathon for a meteor.

“You’ll be lucky to see five of these Earth grazers in the hour between dusk and moonrise,” Lunsford said. “You won’t forget if you see those.”

Lunsford said the absolute best time to view numerous Perseids is the last few hours before dawn. His advice for the best possible observing experience is to look north towards the horizon with the moon at your back.

Lunsford said the brighter meteors tend to occur along the lower portions of the sky. Apart from the possibility of falling into a deep slumber, Lunsford urges folks to find a comfortable lawn chair and stare just a little bit above the horizon instead of lying down on the hard ground and staring straight up.

“The science behind that is, when you’re looking just over the horizon, you’re looking through about 300 or 400 miles of air versus looking straight up, you’re only looking through 50 miles of air,” Lunsford said. “You’re going to see a lot more activity through that longer strip of atmosphere than you will looking straight up.”

Paul Yost serves as the club president of the Spokane Astronomical Society and said some of the best spots to view the Perseids in town are Carnahan Hill near the Dishman Hills Natural Area and High Drive Parkway on the South Hill.

For folks who don’t mind getting out of town and finding more distance from light pollution, Yost suggests going to Fishtrap near the town of Sprague. While it is a bit of a drive, the vast open sky and low levels of light pollution make a near-perfect viewing environment.

Like most meteors, the Perseids are debris from comet tails that disintegrate in fiery and colorful ways once they enter the Earth’s atmosphere.

Yost said most of the meteors one might see in the sky are usually about the size of a grain of sand. Similarly, Lunsford said a meteor the size of a softball equals the luminescence of the moon.

While the Perseids meteor shower is usually only the third strongest, behind the Geminids and another short-lived shower in January called the Quadrantids, it’s often considered the most popular for one big reason: comfort.

After all, rain, sleet and snow are a lot less common in mid-August than they are in December or January.

The Perseids get their name from the constellation Perseus, as most of the meteors seem to radiate from that portion of the sky. Perseus was a legendary Greek hero, the son of Zeus and the mortal princess Danae. In lore, he is known for slaying the serpent-haired Gorgon Medusa and for rescuing the Ethiopian princess, Andromeda, from a sea monster by turning the monstrous behemoth to stone with Medusa’s severed head.

The meteors originate from a comet called 109P Swift/Tuttle. It takes approximately 133 years for Swift/Tuttle to orbit the Sun. At nearly 16 miles across, or twice the size of what scientists think caused the end of the age of dinosaurs, the Swift/Tuttle last entered the inner solar system in 1992.

Lunsford said that in the early ’90s, as many as 300 to 400 meteors per hour were visible in the night sky because of the proximity of the comet. Since then, the number of meteors per hour has slowly gone down.

The notion that meteors serve as portentous messages from a higher power has long been dismissed. But with each falling star and whispered wish, one can begin to understand why ancient people saw meteors as evidence of something greater than themselves; proof that someone, or something, still cared about a race of two-legged beings fiddling around on a floating rock in an endless universe.