The Perseid meteor shower, known for its plentiful meteors and bright “fireballs” that blaze across the night sky, will peak tonight, August 12 to 13, 2025. The moon will be bright, but you’ll still be able to see a stunning display in dark areas.
Here’s what to know about this skywatching event, and how you can catch the show.
Why the Perseids are popular
The Perseids always make for an impressive show. Skywatchers in dark areas can observe around 50 meteors per hour at the shower’s peak. This includes both traditional meteors that leave vibrant streaks in their wakes, as well as the occasional bright fireball of color and light.
This isn’t necessarily the most active meteor shower (the Geminids and Quadrantids vie for that honor), but because the Perseids occur during warm summer nights in the Northern Hemisphere, they are very popular. The meteor shower is also visible from parts of the Southern Hemisphere, but the view is diminished.
The moon will be bright
Unfortunately, the moon will be in its waning gibbous phase, rising during the late evening, which will hamper views of the Perseid meteor shower. The moon’s brightness means that to see any significant number of meteors, you should travel to the darkest sky possible. Even at a dark sky site, you will likely see fewer than the 50 meteors per hour estimated at the shower’s peak.
When is the best time to see the meteor shower?
The radiant, or the point in the sky from which the shower appears to originate, is the Perseus constellation, which will be low in Northern Hemisphere skies in the evening.
That means that the ideal time to see the shower is in the predawn hours, between 3 and 5 a.m. local time, when Perseus has risen higher in the night sky.
Where does the Perseid meteor shower come from?
While the Perseids are named after their radiant, they don’t actually come from the Perseus constellation. Instead, they are the product of the comet 109P/Swift-Tuttle, which has an orbital period of 133 years.
When comets travel through our solar system around the sun, they leave a trail of dust and debris in their wake. When Earth travels through these trails, that is what produces meteor showers, which is why they are relatively reliable nighttime events every year.
This year, Earth travels through 109P/Swift-Tuttle’s trail from July 17 through August 24. The peak, though, is when Earth travels through the core of that trail, which produces the most brilliant and concentrated meteor showers of the entire event. With a keen eye, it is possible to continue to see the occasional Perseid meteor in the night sky through the end of August.
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