AKIPRESS.COM - Dark skies due to a nearly invisible moon made this year’s Perseid meteor shower an especially star-studded event, astronomers said.
At its peak, up to 100 shooting stars per hour streaked across the sky around the world – more than one a minute.
Viewing was easier this year because the moon’s glow has not interfered with meteor-watching as it was approaching its darkest or “new” phase.
The Perseids – one of the biggest meteor showers we can see – occur every year in the late summer.
Meteor showers happen when the Earth moves through fields of debris floating around in space.
The Perseids come from comet Swift-Tuttle, a big ball of ice and rock that sheds pieces of dusty debris as it orbits around the sun, Aljazeera reports.