Bright Moonlight May Dim the Perseid Meteor Showers This Week
Every August, one of nature’s most reliable spectacles lights up the night sky — the Perseid meteor shower. This year’s peak is expected on the nights of August 12 and 13, when Earth plows through the dusty debris trail left behind by the ancient comet 109P/Swift-Tuttle. Normally, under clear and dark skies, the Perseids can deliver dazzling streaks of light at rates of up to 100 meteors per hour, sometimes producing bright “fireballs” that linger for a moment before fading.
But 2025 comes with a challenge. A waning gibbous Moon — still more than 80% illuminated — will be hanging in the sky during peak viewing hours. Its bright glow will wash out the fainter meteors, cutting visible rates by more than half. NASA experts say that instead of dozens of streaks every hour, most observers will probably see closer to 10 to 20, and that’s if conditions are good.
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Still, the Perseids are worth watching. Meteors can be seen from late evening onward, but the real show begins after midnight, with the best window between about 2 and 3 a.m. local time. That’s when the part of the sky facing into Earth’s motion sweeps up the most comet dust, and when the Moon will be lower, giving you a slightly better chance to spot the brighter meteors. Experts recommend heading to a safe, dark location far from city lights, lying back with an open view of the sky, and — most importantly — looking away from the Moon. Your eyes will need at least 20–30 minutes to adjust to the dark.
The meteors you’ll see are tiny bits of Swift-Tuttle, a comet larger than most near-Earth objects and over 5 billion years old. It last visited the inner solar system in 1992 and won’t return until 2126, but its dust trail remains in Earth’s path year after year. As we pass through, these particles slam into the atmosphere at around 37 miles per second, burning up in fiery streaks that appear to radiate from the constellation Perseus — hence the shower’s name.
If you’re watching early in the night, you might catch long “earthgrazers” — slow, dramatic meteors that skim the atmosphere at shallow angles. Later, meteors will seem to shoot in all directions, but they can be traced back to Perseus. You don’t need a telescope or binoculars — in fact, they’ll narrow your view. Just bring a blanket, some patience, and maybe a few friends to share the quiet excitement.
Even with moonlight cutting down the numbers, the Perseids still offer a chance to connect with something both ancient and fleeting — a yearly reminder that our planet is part of a vast, moving system where cosmic dust meets human wonder.
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