Aug 09 2009
Shooting stars set to light up night sky
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Hundreds of shooting stars will light up the night sky this week as the Perseid meteor shower makes its annual appearance.
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The best night to see the shooting stars will be Wednesday, although Tuesday and Thursday will also be worth a look skywards after dark, according to astronomy professor Hans-Ulrich Keller from Stuttgart.
The Perseid meteor shower, considered the richest of the year, consists of tiny pieces of the Swift-Tuttle comet left behind during its 130-year-solar orbit.
He says the best time to stare at the skies is between 10pm and 4am, when there will be up to 100 shooting stars an hour. .
These pieces of space dust some as large as peas but most just a few millimetres across burn up as they hit Earths atmosphere, creating the shooting stars.
