Meteor showers are great showy celestial events where a number of meteors descend or radiate from a single point in the sky. It is found that meteors entering the Earth's atmosphere spew streams of cosmic debris called meteoroids that travel on parallel paths and at high speeds. They are also called as shooting stars or falling stars by layman. Most of them of very tiny pieces that they disintegrate during the journey and are gone before they enter the earth.
Some of the notable meteor showers are the Perseids, and the Leonids. The Perseids are visible all through the year and peak during mid-August. The Leonids are called the King of Meteor showers and peak around mid-November. Scan the north sky to view the Leonids. Driving south may lead you to darker skies, but the glow will dominate the northern horizons. Perseid meteors would be seen as a rain in the north east direction and can be viewed around midnight during mid-August. The visiting meteors are visible when they are around 60 miles of 96.5 kms up. Meteors travel at a speed of about 30,000 mph or 48,280 kph and can reach temperatures of about 3000 Fahrenheit or 1648 degrees Celsius.
The meteor showers listed here are the easiest to observe and provide the most activity. Particular attention should be noted to the time and moonlight conditions. All these showers are best seen after midnight. Some are not even visible until after midnight. While the time each shower is best seen remains much the same year after year, the moonlight conditions change considerably from one year to the next.
Quadrantids 2018:
The Quadrantids are an easily visible January meteor shower. The entire activity period of the Quadrantids runs from January 1 to 5, 2018. The radiant of this shower is an area inside the constellation Bootes.
Peak of Quadrantid meteor shower:
The maximum of the Quadrantid activity in 2018 is expected during the night of the 3rd January 2018. The Quadrantids are an easily visible January meteor shower. The peak intensity is exceedingly sharp: the meteor rates exceed one-half of their highest value for only about 8 hours .
Perseids 2018:
From July 17 to August 24 in 2018 the Perseids light up the night sky. That is the name of a popular meteor shower which comes back every year during the first half of August. The peak of the Perseids is on August 12. At that night one can see extra high amount of shooting stars.
Peak of Perseid meteor shower:
Perseids are one of the strong meteor showers. It produce up to 60 meteors per hour at peak hours. Radiant point of this shower is in the constellation Perseus. These meteors originate from the tail of comet Swift-Tuttle.
Peak of Perseid meteor shower:
The maximum of the Perseid activity in 2018 is expected during the night of the 12th August 2018. The Perseids is the name of a prolific meteor shower. The shower is visible from mid-July each year, with the peak in activity being between August 9 and 14, depending on the particular location of the stream.
Leonids 2018:
The Leonids are a meteor shower associated with the comet Tempel-Tuttle, which is visible between the 14th and 21st of November 2018. The Leonids get their name from the location of their radiant in the constellation Leo: the meteors appear to radiate from that point in the sky. The Leonids tend to peak in November.