Perseid Meteor Shower 2024: When and how to watch

The Perseid meteors are visible all around the world and are so-called because they appear to originate from within the constellation Perseus.

While on most nights the shower will only showcase a few meteors each hour, the peak of the Perseids can bring many, many more.

If you’re really lucky, you could see 100 or more meteors per hour, scientists say.

We see meteors when the Earth passes through trails of debris from comets or asteroids. As that debris hits our planet’s atmosphere, it burns up and creates spectacular streaks of light.

The Perseids – pronounced ‘Per-see-ids’ – are caused by debris left behind by the Swift-Tuttle comet.

Dr Gregory Brown, Senior Public Astronomy Officer at the Royal Observatory in Greenwich, said that the Perseids is one of the fastest meteor showers.

“They travel up to 37 miles per second, but they are about the size of specks of paint or grains of sand falling into the atmosphere.

“While that does cause this rather brilliant light show, they’ve absolutely no chance of hitting the ground. And even if they did, they’re these tiny little things so they wouldn’t cause any harm”