Audio Script
CU-Boulder expert says 鈥淚mpressive鈥� Perseid meteor shower to peak next week
Aug. 7, 2015听听听听听听听听听听听听听听听听听听听听听听听听 听听听听听听听听听听听听听听听听听听听听听听听听听听听听听听听听听听听听听听听听听听听听听听听 Matt Benjamin
It鈥檚 August and that means the hottest show in the night sky, the Perseid meteor shower, will make it annual appearance 鈥� peaking in the pre-dawn hours of Aug. 11 to 14. And because the moon is in its waning phase, this year鈥檚 meteor shower should be outstanding, says Matt Benjamin, a planetary scientist and education program manager at CU-Boulder鈥檚 Fiske Planetarium.
CUT 1 鈥淭his year should be a rather impressive one. Some of the forecasts are saying that this is going to be a large burst of meteors so you could see quite a few. (:08) The Perseid are a pretty consistent meteor shower but it鈥檚 the moon that really makes it either a good or bad show depending on the year. (:16) And the moon phase should be quite beneficial to seeing these meteors. The moon will not be full and therefore you shouldn鈥檛 see much of the moonlight at all. It should be a really good meteor shower.鈥� (:29)
The Perseid meteor shower happens when the Earth passes through the debris field of the Comet Swift-Tuttle.
CUT 2 鈥淭he Perseid meteor is a fantastic meteor shower. It鈥檚 a great meteor shower because of the comet that is creating the debris that Earth is moving through. (:13) And this comet left a fair amount of debris along its path and Earth is thus going through this dense debris. So that then leads to a lot of meteors and shooting stars.鈥� (26)
Benjamin says the meteor shower will be active between midnight and dawn and will appear to originate from the constellation Perseus in the northeastern sky. For best viewing he says to get away from city lights.
CUT 3 鈥淚 would really recommend if you want to go out and see the Perseid I would say make your way into the mountains or if you鈥檙e in the Denver-Front Range area get away from the city lights as best you can. (:11) Find a real nice dark place that has an eastern view that鈥檚 really unobscured and doesn鈥檛 have a lot of city lights looking to the east. And that way you鈥檒l have the best chance to view it.鈥� (:21)
Benjman says the Perseid shower builds gradually to a peak - often producing 50 to 100 meteors per hour in a dark sky.听
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