Heads up! Perseid passing through

This photo was taken during the Perseid meteor shower on Aug. 13, 2010, by Tim Doucette, a member of the Royal Astronomical Society of Canada who lives in Moncton. The bright star on the left is the planet Jupiter. Photo by Tim Doucette /HANDOUT

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The Perseid meteor shower is back!

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And, if you’re lucky in the capital, you’d be able to view its splendour both Wednesday night and Thursday night.

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The Perseid meteor shower is caused by “the Earth passing through debris left behind by Comet Swift-Tuttle as it moves in its orbit about the Sun.” The massive Smith-Tuttle has an average orbit of about 126 years, and last visited these parts in 1992.

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Technically, the meteor shower is visible now, but it peaks overnight on Aug. 12-13, 2026. The best viewing window is between midnight and dawn, when up to 50 to 100 meteors per hour can be seen under dark skies, with best times past midnight through the predawn hours, experts say.

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The debris zooms through the atmosphere “at about 59 kilometres per second, vaporizing about 80 to 90 kilometres altitude and leaving behind streaks of light we call meteors or shooting stars,” the NASA space agency said in a recent release.

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Experts describe the effect as driving into a snowstorm, with snowflakes zooming at the windshield, a useful analogy in Canada.

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Of course, Environment Canada provides some negativity in the forecast.

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The agency forecast a 40-per-cent chance of showers Wednesday evening with the risk of a thunderstorm. Fog patches were expected to develop near midnight.

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As for Thursday, there’s a 40-per-cent chance of showers in the afternoon and more cloudy periods.

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