The meteor shower named Perseid, during which up to 100 shooting stars will fall per hour, takes place on August 12, before dawn, and will be seen from Greece as well.
The Perseids begin as tiny specks of dust that hit the Earth’s atmosphere at 37 miles per second (59 km/s), vaporizing from friction with the air and leaving behind streaks of light called meteors.
The meteors appear to radiate from a spot on the border between the constellations Cassiopeia and Perseus (the latter gives its name to the shower). This so-called radiant lies about one-third of the way from the northeastern horizon to the zenith (the overhead point) around midnight local daylight time and climbs higher as dawn approaches, according to the magazine Astronomy.
The dust particles that create Perseid meteors were born in the comet known as 109P/Swift-Tuttle. This object orbits the Sun once every 130 years. It last returned to the inner solar system in 1992, as reported in the aforementioned magazine.
Perseid is considered to be one of the most impressive meteor showers of the year, as the shooting stars are fast, bright and have long fire tails. The meteors in question start falling in July, while their number gradually increases and last until the end of August.
An analysis by NASA for the years 2008-2013 shows that Perseid produces more bright meteors than any other meteor shower. They appear at almost all spots of the sky and not at a specific one.
The Perseid meteor shower can be seen without special equipment.
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