The Year's Best Meteor Shower Is Underway In MD: How To See It

MARYLAND — You may already be seeing Perseid meteors from the most-anticipated shooting star show of 2024, but it’s only going to get better for Maryland skywatchers as the Aug. 11-13 peak nears.

The Perseid meteor shower, which started Sunday and will continue through August, is a usually prolific shooting star show with 50 to 100 meteors an hour visible at the peak under dark skies. They’re also rich in fireballs, larger explosions of light and color that are brighter than typical meteors and whose “tails” last longer than typical meteor streaks. That’s because, NASA explains, fireballs come from larger particles of cometary material.

The Perseids are definitely worth a trip away from city lights. To make the most of the shooting star show, find the darkest sky possible. Multiple national parks have certified dark skies. If you’re on vacation during the peak, this interactive map of international dark sky parks is a handy guide.

In Maryland, consider these top sky-watching spots in Maryland, according to Space Tourism Guide:

• Assateague Island
• Bear Branch Recreation Park
• City of Greenbelt Observatory
• Gaithersburg Observatory Park
• Green Ridge State Forest
• Kent Island

This year’s Perseids peak coincides with the first quarter moon, which sets around midnight. That’s ideal, because most meteors fly during the predawn hours, according to NASA.

An outburst, such as occurred in 2016 when meteors flew at rates to 150 to 200 an hour, isn’t expected this year, but meteor experts are already talking about a potential Perseid meteor storm in 2028. That’s worth planning ahead for, too.

When it comes to brilliance, only the Geminid meteor shower in December rivals the Perseids. Both are known for swift, bright meteors that frequently produce fireballs and leave behind long “wakes” of light and color, according to NASA.

The big difference between the two shooting star shows from the skywatcher’s vantage point is the difference between summer and winter. Regardless of the meteor shower, stargazers are rewarded for their patience, something many have in more abundance on warm summer versus cold winter nights.

Weather is always a variable, but the clearer the skies and more plentiful the stars, the more meteors are visible, according to the American Meteor Society.

The shooting stars and fireballs may not all be from the Perseids. This summertime favorite intersects with two other minor meteor showers: the Delta Aquariid meteor shower, which starts Thursday, peaks July 21 and continues through Aug. 21; and the Alpha Capricornids, which started July 7, have a “plateau-like” maximum peak on July 30-31 and end Aug. 13.

Also, meteors randomly fly in the sky but don’t always seem to originate from a particular star or constellation. The Perseids, no matter where they’re seen in the sky, trace back to the radiant point of the constellation of Perseus. The meteor shower is a tiny piece of the comet Swift-Tuttle, which orbits the sun every 135 years, according to NASA.