Meteor Shower: Perseids from Perseus

Explanation: This is a good week to see meteors. Comet dust will rain down on planet Earth, streaking through dark skies during peak nights of the annual Perseid Meteor Shower . The featured composite image was taken during the 2018 Perseids from the Poloniny Dark Sky Park in Slovakia . The dome of the observatory in the foreground is on the grounds of Kolonica Observatory . Although the comet dust particles travel parallel to each other, the resulting shower meteors clearly seem to radiate from a single point on the sky in the eponym ous constellation Perseus . The radiant effect is due to perspective , as the parallel tracks appear to converge at a distance, like train tracks . The Perseid Meteor Shower is expected to reach its highest peak on Saturday after midnight. Since a crescent Moon will rise only very late that night , cloudless skies will be darker than usual, making a high number of faint meteors potentially visible this year.