Perseid Meteor Shower

It’s time for the best meteor shower of the year, the Perseids. And this year could be better than most years.

Each year Earth plows through a stream of debris from 109P/Swift-Tuttle, a comet that orbits the sun once every 133 years. As the debris enters our atmosphere, it burns up creating beautiful meteors, or “shooting stars.”

Babak Najafi‘s animation explains why we get the Perseid meteor shower each year.