Billions of years ago, a star near our current solar system exploded in a brilliant supernova, throwing gases and bits of matter in many different directions. The remnants of this dramatic death left hydrogen gas and dust floating in the Milky Way galaxy along the Orion Spur of our spiral galaxy. This gas and dust began to merge, heat, and swirl together, producing a protostar. Once the temperature at the protostar’s core reached approximately 15 million Kelvin, nuclear fusion began within our sun’s center, creating a star. The leftover matter and gases from Sol’s creation began to collide, forming the rocky planets, moons, asteroids, meteoroids, gas planets, frozen bodies, and comets of our solar system approximately 4.6 billion years ago.

One of the most distant objects making the orbit around Sol is the icy bodies from the Kuiper Belt and the Oort Cloud. Occasionally, a comet from these regions of our solar system will pass through, allowing us to catch a glimpse like comet Neowise did last month. This comet dazzled skywatchers for most of July, resulting in beautiful photos of the tails of ionized gases and dust from the icy body as it began melting under the sun’s heat and solar winds.

The orbit of comets around the sun leaves behind bits of dust and ice along the Earth’s orbital plane. As the Earth orbits the Sol, in a predictable pattern each year, the Earth will move through these leftover bits resulting in striking meteor showers viewed here on Earth.

Annually, one of the most exciting meteor showers is the Perseids meteor shower happening this year from July 17th through August 26th. This meteor shower produces the most fireballs and has a frequency of 40-60 meteors per hour during the peak in the early am. It is a result of the passing of the comet Swift-Tuttle on its 133-year orbit. The shower’s peak will be the night between August 11th and 12th, with moonrise happening about 12:30 am. The moon will be 45% full, so getting out as soon as it is dark is advised.