Perseids Meteor Shower To Shimmer Over UK

This year's Perseids meteor shower promises up to 60 shooting stars an hour being visible in the skies over the UK.

The spectacle is expected to peak between late Monday evening and early Tuesday morning.

And the prospects for this year's showing are deemed to be particularly good, especially for stargazers in the UK, according to the Royal Astronomical Society.

The natural phenomenon - the result of the cosmic pollution created by the comet Swift-Tuttle which last passed near the Earth in 1992 - is expected to be visible to the unaided eye.

"Comet Swift-Tuttle won't be visiting our neck of the woods again until the year 2125, but every year we get this beautiful reminder as the Earth ploughs through the debris it leaves in its orbit" said Professor Alan Fitzsimmons of Queen's University Belfast.

The Perseids meteor shower in the Republic of Macedonia, August 2011

"Every meteor is a speck of comet dust vaporising as it enters our atmosphere at 36 miles per second. What a glorious way to go."

Meteors, commonly known as shooting stars, are the result of small particles entering the Earth's atmosphere at high speed.

These heat the air around them, causing the characteristic streak of light seen from the ground.

They mostly appear as fleeting flashes lasting less than a second, but the brightest ones leave behind trails of vaporised gases and glowing air molecules that may take a few seconds to fade.

The Perseids meteor shower is active each year from around mid-July to late-August, but for most of that period only a few meteors an hour will be visible.

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