Keep an eye on the sky as the Earth hurtles through comet's particle trail


              FILE - In this early morning, Aug. 13, 2013 file photo, a meteor streaks past the faint band of the Milky Way galaxy above the Wyoming countryside north of Cheyenne, Wyo., during a Perseids meteor shower. On Thursday night, Aug. 11, 2016 into early Friday morning, the Perseid meteor shower is expected to peak with double the normal number of meteors. Scientists call this an outburst, and they say it could reach up to 200 meteors per hour. (AP Photo/The Wyoming Tribune Eagle, Blaine McCartney)
FILE - In this early morning, Aug. 13, 2013 file photo, a meteor streaks past the faint band of the Milky Way galaxy above the Wyoming countryside north of Cheyenne, Wyo., during a Perseids meteor shower. On Thursday night, Aug. 11, 2016 into early Friday morning, the Perseid meteor shower is expected to peak with double the normal number of meteors. Scientists call this an outburst, and they say it could reach up to 200 meteors per hour. (AP Photo/The Wyoming Tribune Eagle, Blaine McCartney)

Stargazers are treated to a breathtaking meteor shower every August as the Earth hurtles through the centuries-old particle trails of a comet, but this year is special.

The Perseid shower is a result of the Swift-Tuttle comet that orbits the sun every 133 years. As the comet makes its lonely circles, it leaves behind a 17-mile-wide ribbon of rock and ice for the Earth to tear through, burning up countless leftover bits in its atmosphere.

This year, Jupiter's gravitational influence has tugged together several of those trails from the comet's previous orbits in 1079, 1479 and 1862, lining them up for an unusually high-density display of meteors that could reach up to 200 per hour.

According to an article published by NASA, the Earth usually passes through the edge of Swift-Tuttle's trail, but on occasion, the planet passes through closer to the center, where there is more debris.

"You don't need a telescope, you just need a good pair of eyes and the biggest field of view you can get," said Jack Pitkin, a University of Tennessee at Chattanooga professor and manager of the Clarence T. Jones Observatory.

Pitkin said there will likely be a crescent moon that should cut down on light pollution when the meteor burst is at its peak tonight, but the sky will be darkest after the moon sets around 1 a.m.

Meteor watching may be slightly handicapped by cloud cover, but Paul Barys, chief meteorologist at WRCB Channel 3, said people interested in watching the show could expect a break in the cloud cover after dark.

"It's not going to be crystal-clear skies, but we will see, at worst, partly cloudy skies at night," he said.

That's good news for this year's show, which has been thousands of years in the making, according to Bill Cooke with NASA's Meteoroid Environments Office in Huntsville, Ala.

"The meteors you'll see this year are from comet flybys that occurred hundreds if not thousands of years ago," Cooke said. "And they've traveled billions of miles before their kamikaze run into Earth's atmosphere."

But Pitkin, who wants to keep the expectations of some viewers in check, said he's only seen one truly great meteor shower in his life.

"One thing I do tell people is it's not like you see on TV. It's usually a very fast, very fleeting phenomenon, like a lightning bolt," he said.

In his mind, the best thing you can do is, "Kick back, look and see if you see any."

Contact staff writer Emmett Gienapp at egienapp@timesfreepress.com or 423-757-6731. Follow him on Twitter @emmettgienapp.

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