13 Aug 2013

Brits catch glimpse of meteor shower

People across the UK turned into amateur astronomers on Monday night as they looked out for the “shooting stars” created by material falling from the tail of Comet Swift-Tuttle.

Meteor stars Comet Swift-Tuttle astrologers

While the Perseids meteor shower is an annual event between mid-July and mid-August, the best views this year were expected to be on Monday night, with as many as 60 meteors an hour visible to the naked eye.

Hundreds of people posted photos and comments about their stargazing experiences from across the northern hemisphere on Twitter.

The moon was in a waxing crescent, meaning its light did not significantly interfere with the view, the Royal Astronomical Society said.

The weather also helped, with clear skies over large swathes of the UK, from central southern England to Lincolnshire, the Pennines and Yorkshire, up to southern Scotland, as well as south east Wales.

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.

Comet Swift-Tuttle last passed near the earth in 1992 and will not visit again until the year 2125.

A Perseid meteor streaks across the sky past the light trail of an aircraft over the Lovell Radio Telescope at Jodrell Bank in Holmes Chapel, United Kingdom.