This year, lovers of tears of saint lorenzo they will have some difficulties for visualize shooting stars They fall every year from mid-August. So, with 50 to 100 shooting stars expected to pass by per hour, only 10 to 20 per hour will be visible at best.
But why? The main reason is not is neither light pollution or the position of the Earth and the Sun. It is about the Moon, which this year 2022 coincides in that on August 19 there will be a full Moon, thus subtracting the darkness from the night sky in the middle of the month and making it difficult to see shooting stars.
“Unfortunately, the peak of the Perseids this year will see the worst possible circumstances for observersNASA astronomer Bill Cooke, who directs the Meteoroid Environment Office at NASA’s Marshall Space Flight Center, said in a statement.
“Most of us in North America normally we would see 50 or 60 meteors per hour“, he said, “but this year, during the normal peak, the full Moon will reduce that to 10-20 per hour in the best case”.
a bright satellite
Although it does not have its own light, the Moon is much brighter than anything else in the night skyso it will dim and eliminate the dimmest Perseids, except for the ones that pass through our atmosphere and burn up high, which are the brightest.
As the full moon fades, Perseids will begin to wane on August 21 and 22 and will cease completely on September 1. It’s the leftover debris from Comet Swift-Tuttle, a heavy “snowball” of ice, rock, and dust that orbits our Sun every 133 years. The comet itself was last visible to us in 1992 and won’t pass our way again until 2125.
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How far back the Perseid sightings actually go remains a matter of dispute, Cooke said. The comet itself was not identified until 1862, but the meteor shower was seen over medieval Europe.
the annual event became known as “the Tears of San Lorenzo“, named after the last of the seven Roman church deacons martyred by Emperor Valerian in August 258.