Perseid Meteor Shower and Northern Lights to Light Up Night Skies Over the Weekend

A display of celestial fireworks is expected to light up the night skies as the Earth passes through a cloud of cometary dust, producing up to 100 meteors every hour.

Astronomers forecast that there will be 100’s of shooting stars during the Perseid meteor shower, the best of which is expected to be visible on the night of 11th August from 10pm.

The event is associated with the dusty debris left by Comet Swift-Tuttle, which orbits the sun once every 133 years.

The meteoroids from the comet, mostly no bigger than a grain of sand, burn up as they hit the Earth's atmosphere at 36 miles per second, to produce a shooting stream of light in the sky.

The meteor showers will be visible on the nights of 11 and 13 August.

At the same time, space weather forecasters have predicted that parts of the North of the UK could also see the aurora borealis following three plumes of plasma, known as coronal mass ejections, fired out by the Sun on Thursday, will hit the Earth’s atmosphere just as the Perseids are reaching their peak on Sunday night.

With clear skies forecast and the moon setting just after midnight making viewing conditions locally ideal for viewing the meteor shower and if they appear the norther lights.

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