[Science Report]:The Perseid Meteor Shower


This is the VOA SpecialEnglish Science Report.

This month, you can see with your own eyes how material fromspace falls to Earth.

Space material, which is mostly rock, is often captured byEarth's gravity and falls to the surface of our planet. Thesefalling space rocks are called meteors. Large numbers of meteorsfall during a meteor shower. The Perseid (PER-see-id) meteor showeris the most famous of these events.

The Perseid meteor shower happens in early August every year. Thelargest number of meteors is expected to fall on August twelfth.Scientists measure meteor showers by the average number of meteorsthat fall in an hour. About ninety-five meteors fall in an hourduring the most active day of the Perseid shower.

The Italian scientist Giovanni Schiaparelli named the Perseidmeteor shower in Eighteen-Sixty-Six. He called it the Perseid meteorshower because its meteors appear to come from the group of starscalled Perseus (PER-see-us). Meteor showers are named for the groupof stars, or constellation, from which they come.

Mister Schiaparelli discovered that the Perseid meteors had thesame orbit as a comet, another kind of space object. A comet is alarge body of gas, ice and rock. The Italian astronomer found thatthe Comet Swift-Tuttle had the same orbit as the Perseid meteors.Mister Schiaparelli's discovery showed that meteor showers come frommaterial left behind by comets.

Traditionally, people believed that meteors were a weather event.Edward Herrick of New Haven, Connecticut, was one of the earlytheorists who suggested that meteors came from space. InEighteen-Thirty-Eight, Mister Herrick published a report claiming tohave discovered a meteor shower in August.

But he soon found that people had observed the August meteorshowers for centuries. One German tradition calls the Perseidmeteors the "tears of Saint Lawrence." This was in honor of areligious person who was put to death by the Romans in the ThirdCentury. The anniversary of the death of Saint Lawrence is Augusttenth.

To see the Perseids all you need to do is to watch the sky. Thisyear, the moon will brighten the sky, making it more difficult tosee meteors. But you still should be able to see about one meteorevery minute during the early morning hours of August twelfth.

This VOA Special English Science Report was written by MarioRitter.

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