The Perseid meteor shower is coming. Here’s how to watch — and understand what you’re seeing

CATHY WURZER: Oh, we heard earlier in the show that clouds will cover much of the state today, but with luck, they'll clear so you can get a look at the night sky. Why? Well, each year, around this time, the Earth rotates through a trail of space debris. When these hunks of asteroids and comet particles burn up in the atmosphere, they give off the impression that stars are shooting across the sky. It's called the Perseid meteor shower. And it's happening right now.

But it will peak this coming weekend and early next week. The darker the setting, the more brilliant the show. That's why Voyageurs National Park on Minnesota's northern border is a great place to watch the Perseids and other astronomical events. Jesse Gates is a dark sky specialist with the Voyageurs Conservancy. Jesse's on the line. Hey, thanks for taking the time, Jesse.

JESSE GATES: Hey, thank you so much for having me. This is a pleasure.

CATHY WURZER: Oh, good. I'm glad. Say, Voyageurs is one of the 10 best national parks for watching the Perseids. Evidently, Outside Magazine says that you've got to go to Voyageurs. So tell us-- and I'm terribly embarrassed to tell you this-- I've never been to Voyageurs National Park-- what makes it such a great place for stargazing?

JESSE GATES: Yeah, that's a great question. So Voyageurs National Park is a fantastic place to see the night sky and that awesome band of the Milky Way, mostly because of our location and because of our dedication to remaining dark.

So the first part, the location, we're removed from a lot of light pollution. Light pollution is the invasion of night skies by artificial light. And unfortunately, it has a lot of negative consequences. And it is very prevalent across the country.

But if you look at these kind of light pollution maps and you look up at Voyageurs National Park, you'll see that we're kind of in this little island of darkness. We're this remote little island of darkness. And so, that's one reason that we're such a great place to see the stars and to see the meteor shower and the Milky Way.

But the other reason is that we're dedicated to remaining dark. We recently were designated as a dark sky park, which has some conditions that we have to follow that don't just show that we were dark, but that we promise to remain dark as well.

CATHY WURZER: So I don't think I've ever really been to a place that's completely dark. What is that like?

JESSE GATES: Oh, my gosh. It's awesome. And I'll just start off by saying, most of my life, like you, I didn't really ever go anywhere where it is truly dark. I'm originally from New York City.

CATHY WURZER: Ah.

JESSE GATES: But as I got involved in this work, now it's very normal for me to see the band of the Milky Way. But again, for most of my life, that wasn't the case. But what it feels like, it's sometimes kind of difficult to put into words. It's something you kind of just have to experience. But I'll try to paint it for you.

With the naked eye, you can see literally thousands of stars. When it's a moonless night and when the humidity is down and the clouds are gone, thousands and thousands of stars all around you. You can see that awesome band, the Milky Way, shooting from one end of the horizon, up above your head, and to the other end of the horizon.

And then, to top it off, one of my all-time favorite things to see at this location is you can see all of what I just mentioned, but additionally, you can see the Northern Lights on a really, really lucky night. And, oh, my gosh, I feel so spoiled living up here now. I've seen them a handful of times since moving up here, but--

CATHY WURZER: Wow.

JESSE GATES: --it is really just something special.

CATHY WURZER: See, I have yet to see them. And--

JESSE GATES: Oh.

CATHY WURZER: --that's a bucket list item for sure. So let's talk about the Perseids, because they're around, and you can see them. So, how long could it take to use up all this debris that I mentioned in my introduction left behind by this comet that creates the Perseids?

JESSE GATES: Yeah, and by the way, you did a great job explaining that, too. Like you mentioned--

CATHY WURZER: Give that to my producers. That was my producer. Yeah, go ahead.

JESSE GATES: Yeah, yeah. Well, they did great. So, yeah. So as you mentioned, this kind of rock debris that's left over from a comet, it's sprinkled these tiny, tiny little rocks along our path, along the sun. And as a consequence, we kind of smash into it every single year. And like you mentioned, that's what causes these incandescent streaks across the sky. And that's what we call this meteor shower.

To answer your question, how long does it take for it to go away, we don't really have to worry about that because the comet that's responsible for sprinkling this rock debris along our pathway, it comes back every 130 years or so, 133 years. And it kind of replenishes it. It's not a pretty stable orbit. So we'll see these meteor showers for years and years and years and years and years to come.

CATHY WURZER: Now, this isn't the only meteor shower that happens, right?

JESSE GATES: Mm-hmm.

CATHY WURZER: But this one always appears to be the most talked about. So why is it so special?

JESSE GATES: Yeah, so for one, it's just the concentration of material is pretty impressive. So that rock debris that our atmosphere is smashing into to create that glow and kind of vaporizes it, it's highly concentrated. So that's one end of it. But another end of it is, if you think about the time of year, August is like a perfect month for stargazing. It's not too hot. The mosquitoes have mostly gone away. You can just sit out there with your lawn chair and just stare out there for hours and hours and hours.

Where you think about some of these other meteor showers, there are other really impressive ones, such as the Geminids, which happen in December. But as I mentioned, they're in December. And so you're probably less likely to go out for as long of a period as you would in August, which are the Perseids.

CATHY WURZER: Sure, makes sense. So what is happening at Voyageurs around the Perseids this year?

JESSE GATES: Yeah, so we have our large, large event. It's my favorite time of year. It's called the Star Party. The Star Party is from August 9 and to August 10. August 9 will be at Rainy Lake Visitor Center, and the 10th will be at Kabetogama Visitor Center. And this is kind of just a large celebration of Minnesota's dark skies.

We'll have tons of different events. It's all free. It's open to all ages and all levels of experience. Whether you're a well-versed astronomer or if you've never seen the Milky Way before, it's welcome to everyone. We will have Ranger programs. We'll have live music. We'll have special speaker Astro Bob come and give a presentation on the Perseids. And we'll also have telescopes.

And this is everyone's favorite part. We have these green laser pointers. It's essentially like a giant lightsaber that shoots up to the sky. And so you can very directly trace out a constellation. So we'll show people constellations and other cool stuff in the sky.

And, yeah, we'll also have really, really powerful telescopes. I got to tell you, the new telescope that we got, it's taller than me. It's about 6 feet tall when it stands up vertically. And it is a beast of an instrument. You can see some really wonderful things in the night sky with it.

CATHY WURZER: Your voice is just contagiously excited. I mean, you're just so excited about this. And I appreciate hearing that, too. I hope you have a wonderful time, Jesse. And thanks for the explanations.

JESSE GATES: Of course. Thank you so much for having me. This has been a pleasure.

CATHY WURZER: Jesse Gates is the Voyageurs Conservancy's dark sky specialist and an education specialist.