A dazzling celestial spectacle is about to light up the Bay Area night sky again — that is, if you’re lucky enough to catch a glimpse of it.
The Perseid meteor shower, known as “one of the strongest meteor showers of the year,” is expected to reach its peak Tuesday night, Gerald McKeegan, a staff astronomer for the Chabot Space & Science Center in Oakland, told SFGATE. Caused by a stream of space dust and bits of rock left behind by the comet 109P/Swift-Tuttle, the phenomenon can produce as many as 40 to 70 visible meteors per hour.
“Meteor particles enter the atmosphere at about 40-60 kilometers per second, causing shock heating and friction that quickly burns up the particles and ionizes the air around them,” McKeegan said in an email. “This produces the long bright streaks that we see as ‘shooting stars.’”…