A Meteor Shower Fireball Movie
			
		
		
			Credit & Copyright: 
D. Polishook, N. Brosch, & I. Manulis
(Tel-Aviv U., 
Wise Obs.), and
Spacegaurd Israel
		
		
			Go outside tonight and see a celestial light show -- 
the later the better.  
Tonight is the peak of the month-long 
Perseid Meteor Shower.  
Although visible every year at this time, the 
Perseids are expected to appear particularly active
this year due to the relative absence of glare from the Moon during the peak.   
Tonight, a thin moon will set a 
few hours after the Sun, leaving a moonless and dark sky.  
All through the night, all over the sky, 
meteors will appear to shoot out the constellation Perseus and across the sky.  
The rate of meteors and 
fireballs is not known for sure, 
but expected by some to be as high as 
one meteor flash every minute.  
Lucky sky gazers 
might be treated to a bright fireball like the one pictured above.  
That fireball was 
captured by a digital recorded over 
Wise Observatory 
during the 2001 Leonid Meteor Shower.  
The meteor shower 
poses no danger as few, if any, of the 
sand-sized flaring bits are expected to reach the ground.