Perseid Meteor Shower August 2012: Upto '100 Meteors An Hour' To Dazzle Skywatchers

Perseid Meteor Shower August 2012

The annual Perseid meteor shower will fill pre-dawn skies with hundreds of shooting stars from August 11-13, 2012, the National Aeronautics and Space Administration (NASA) said.

"We expect to see meteor rates as high as a hundred per hour," says Bill Cooke of NASA's Meteoroid Environment Office.  "The Perseids always put on a good show."

NASA said that the Peseid meteor shower can be seen any time after 11 p.m. but the best time to look is during the dark hours immediately before dawn. It further said that the brightest planets in the solar system are also lining up right in the middle of the display.

"Jupiter, Venus, and the crescent Moon are gathering together just as the Perseid meteor shower reaches its peak." NASA wrote. "The alignment occurs in the eastern sky before sunrise on the three mornings of highest meteor activity."

Cooke also said NASA has developed "Meteor Counter," a free app for Android and iPhones to help amateur sky watchers count meteors in a scientific way and report the results to it.

Check out this NASA video describing the August 2012 Perseid Meteor Shower: