{"id":991011,"date":"2026-08-09T12:34:19","date_gmt":"2026-08-09T12:34:19","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/991011\/"},"modified":"2026-08-09T12:34:19","modified_gmt":"2026-08-09T12:34:19","slug":"perseid-meteor-shower-2026-a-new-moon-will-offer-great-views","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/991011\/","title":{"rendered":"Perseid meteor shower 2026: A new moon will offer great views"},"content":{"rendered":"

NEW YORK (AP) \u2014 The Perseid summer light show<\/a> is back \u2014 and viewing conditions are especially promising for the Northern Hemisphere.<\/p>\n

The meteor shower\u2019s peak<\/a> Wednesday night into Thursday morning coincides with a total solar eclipse<\/a> across Spain, Iceland and Greenland and a six-planet parade \u2014 though the best time to view the fireballs will come after totality.<\/p>\n

As many as 50 to 100 meteors per hour may be visible under ideal conditions, according to NASA. The American Meteor Society estimates 30 to 50 meteors per hour could be seen from rural regions. <\/p>\n

Random meteors are visible in dark skies on any given night. Meteor showers tend to put on dazzling celestial shows and happen at predictable times every year<\/a> when the Earth plows through trails of debris left behind by comets and, sometimes, asteroids. Those remnants collide with Earth\u2019s atmosphere at extremely high speeds, producing streaks of light known as shooting stars.<\/p>\n

The Perseids are debris from comet 109P\/Swift-Tuttle, an icy ball that orbits the sun every 133 years and isn\u2019t scheduled for a return visit until 2125. Observations of this meteor shower date back over 2,000 years. <\/p>\n

The Perseids are a perennial favorite because they tend to produce brilliant fireballs. Summer temperatures also make this shower popular.<\/p>\n

<\/p>\n

<\/p>\n

<\/p>\n

<\/a><\/p>\n

\u201cWe don\u2019t have to suffer through a cold winter night to get a good view of meteors,\u201d said astronomer Zach Vanderbosch with McDonald Observatory in Texas.<\/p>\n

The moon will be in its new moon phase during the Perseids\u2019 peak, making viewing conditions even better.<\/p>\n

\u201cThe moon is beautiful, but it\u2019s such a diva,\u201d said astronomer Aparna Venkatesan with the University of San Francisco. \u201cNew moon means we don\u2019t have moonlight flooding the sky, and you tend to see way more meteors as a result.\u201d<\/p>\n

To spot the meteors, go outside after dark, away from clouds and city lights. Venkatesan plans to drive to the Sierra Nevada.<\/p>\n

The best views will be between midnight and dawn when the constellation Perseus is high in the northern sky. The meteors will appear to radiate from that constellation. <\/p>\n

Look up and give your eyes a half hour to adjust to the darkness. Vanderbosch recommends picking a patch of sky to focus on until a quick, bright streak passes by \u2014 even in your peripheral vision \u2014 and to avoid looking at your phone.<\/p>\n

\u201cThere\u2019s just something magical about it,\u201d Vanderbosch said.<\/p>\n

___<\/p>\n

The Associated Press Health and Science Department receives support from the Howard Hughes Medical Institute\u2019s Department of Science Education and the Robert Wood Johnson Foundation. The AP is solely responsible for all content.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"NEW YORK (AP) \u2014 The Perseid summer light show is back \u2014 and viewing conditions are especially promising…\n","protected":false},"author":3,"featured_media":991012,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":"","_share_on_mastodon":"0"},"categories":[24],"tags":[3881,4514,57,8298,24920,27903,165,27902,159,783,167,128,61,67,132,68,397357],"class_list":["post-991011","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-space","tag-ap-top-news","tag-astronomy","tag-general-news","tag-greenland","tag-iceland","tag-meteors-and-meteorites","tag-national-aeronautics-and-space-administration","tag-planets","tag-science","tag-space","tag-space-exploration","tag-spain","tag-u-s-news","tag-united-states","tag-unitedstates","tag-us","tag-zach-vanderbosch"],"share_on_mastodon":{"url":"https:\/\/pubeurope.com\/@us\/117065580069068990","error":""},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/991011","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/3"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=991011"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/991011\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/991012"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=991011"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=991011"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=991011"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}