TAMPA, Fla. — Parents and kids should expect a night spectacle before heading to bed Sunday night into Monday morning.
“The best meteor shower of the year” is set to dazzle the night’s sky ahead of the first day of school in the Tampa Bay area.
It’s called the Perseid meteor shower, a flurry of bright blue meteors set to shoot through the sky at a rate of 50 to 100 meteors per hour, according to NASA.
Here in Tampa Bay, expect to see them in the pre-dawn hours of Sunday and Monday between midnight and 5 a.m. The shower is the peak of several other showers running through July and August, CBS News reports.
The best way to see the spectacle, experts say, is under cloudless dark skies away from city lights, so it may be best to find a place away from lights and look to the Northeast. No safety eyewear is required, NASA said.
There will be more opportunities to see showers over the month through Sep. 1, The Associated Press reports.
Perseids are known for their long tails and trails that brighten up the night sky. The earth goes through the Comet Swift-Tuttle debris trail, creating the biggest meteor shower of the year as particles the size of dust burn up when they hit the earth's atmosphere at over 130,000 mph.