The spectacular celestial display of the Perseid meteor shower happily coincides with Singapore National Day festivities this year. The heavenly fireworks will be visible from the crack of dawn — about 4am onwards — on August 9, and will be at their brightest on August 12 and 13, according to reports.
Mothership cited a post from Stargazing Singapore to say that the Perseids would be visible in the northeastern sky, and that they would be visible to the naked eye.
The best locations for catching the Perseid meteor shower are open areas, e.g. parks, beaches, sky gardens, building rooftops, and so on. Areas away from light pollution are best for observing this celestial phenomenon.
Though the term “meteor shower” implies a rain of meteors filling the night sky, in this case, it is more likely to be a series of meteors “falling” one after the other.
Visible every year between mid-July and late-August, the Perseids do not actually “fall” anywhere; rather, the “shower” is the result of planet Earth passing through the debris field of meteors left behind by the Swift-Tuttle comet.
The comet, with an orbital time period of more than a century, was discovered in 1862, visited our solar system in 1992, and is set to return only in 2125. As planet Earth travels on its annual journey around the Sun, the Perseids are what connect humankind to the comet.
