Once a year in August, the night sky is graced by the glittery display of the Perseid meteor shower.
The Perseid meteor shower is an annual event where the Earth passes through the orbit of the comet Swift-Tuttle. Debris that's being spewed off of the comet rains down on the Earth. Those little pieces of comet dust enter the Earth's atmosphere at very high speed, heat up, strip off their outer layers and make meteors we see once a year. The peak happens around the night of Aug. 12 each year.
If you want to see the most meteors, it helps to go around the peak. To see all the faint meteors, you want the sky to be dark, so an hour or so after sunset up until about an hour or so before sunrise. Before sunrise is the best time to observe because that's when the side of the Earth that you're on is moving directly into the stream, so you'll see the most meteors.
