Perseids 2022 – the most spectacular meteor shower of the year. Where it is best seen

According to the predictions presented by the Bucharest Astronomical Observatory, during the Perseids, about one meteor per minute will be seen.

What are the Perseids?

The Perseids are a meteor shower that occurs every year around mid-August.

The name Perseid comes from the constellation where they come from and represents one of the meteor swarms that are active in a year, according to astro-urseanu.ro.

The light trail seen in the sky is left by a particle with a diameter of less than 1 mm that causes sparks in the air when it enters the Earth’s atmosphere.

That streak of light is visible for a few seconds and scientifically it is called a meteor and the cosmic dust particle that burns up in the atmosphere is called a meteoroid and the piece that sometimes falls to Earth is called a meteorite.

When is the meteor shower in 2022

The Persidelor phenomenon starts every year on July 17 and ends on August 24, but the maximum current will be reached on the night of August 12 to 13, 2022, at 4 o’clock, Romanian local time.

Due to the fact that there will be a full moon on August 11, 2022, this will make it difficult to observe the Perseids.

NASA astronomer Bill Cooke said that in past years North America saw between 50 and 60 meteors per hour, but this year, due to the full moon, between 10 and 20 per hour will be seen, according to scitechdaily .com

Cooke’s Perseids are the remnants of Comet SWIFT-Tuttle, a lump of ice, rock and dust that orbits the Sun every 133 years.

According to the data, the comet was first identified in 1862, but the meteor shower was seen during the Middle Ages.

The annual event came to be known as the “tears of Lawrence” and refers to Saint Lawrence, the last of seven deacons of the Roman church who was tortured by the emperor Valerian in August 258.

The comet was last seen in 1992 and will be visible again in 2125.

Places where it can be seen best

To see the Perseids, experts recommend that we position ourselves in a dark place outside the cities, for example in a rural area, in the forest or on a mountain, and look at the sky.

If we want to see the Perseids, we don’t need a high-performance telescope, because they can be seen very easily with the naked eye.

In 2021, 300 people went to the Bucharest Astronomical Observatory to see the Perseids.