The Profundity of Perseids

Mount Evans, Colorado, 2012

        So I stayed up as late as I could to watch the Perseid meteor shower last night.  I love shooting stars - even more than I love rainbows - I know, everyone loves shooting stars and rainbows - it may be the most hackneyed thing I have put to "paper."  Yet, the fact remains, a meteor shower may be my favorite thing ever.  I looked up some information on this meteor shower - on wikipedia - yes, I know, not the most reliable source, but for things like this it is usually reasonably accurate.  "The Perseids are so-called because the point from which they appear to come, called the radiant, lies in the constellation Perseus.[...] The stream of debris is called the Perseid cloud and stretches along the orbit of the comet Swift-Tuttle. The cloud consists of particles ejected by the comet as it travels on its 130-year orbit. Most of the dust in the cloud today is around a thousand years old. However, there is also a relatively young filament of dust in the stream that was pulled off the comet in 1862.^[3] The rate of meteors originating from this filament is much higher than for the older part of the stream."  I think this kind of stuff is so cool - watching a meteor shower is like a form of time travel - what you are seeing actually already happened - it's really strange to think about.  It's also kind of mind-boggling to consider that with all the advancements that have been made in the knowledge of space, people have been enjoying the Perseid shower the same way I did last night for 2000 years.  So, anyway, the shower's peak was actually Saturday, but the clouds were unforgiving.  The best time to watch is as close to dawn as you can get, but the lighter the sky, the harder it is to spot the stars.  I couldn't stay up nearly that late, as I had to work today, but even as early as 1am there was quite a bit of action.  Just in my small patch of sky, I saw 38 shooting stars from 1-2:30, and probably six of those were really impressive.

        I have watched the Perseid shower every August ever since I can remember.  It's funny, I have watched it so many times, but last night I realized that I have never watched it alone.  I've always had at least one person there - I used to watch with my dad and my sister, more recently my little sister, my boyfriend, friends - I do my best to spread the word of the magic of meteor showers.  I believe that it's the only event that can make you feel so small and utterly insignificant, yet for a short time you are connected to the vastness of space in a way that we seldom are.  It's an event so big that most of the world can watch it, but every time someone sees a shooting star it makes them feel uniquely special.  Have you ever watched someone see their first shooting star?  It's pretty cool.  I have a twelve-year-old sister, and a few summers ago I was visiting my parents in Illinois during the Perseid shower, so we watched together.  It's so flat and there are so few trees there that the sky seems bigger - and that year was a good one, I remember.  I had to spend the whole night shushing her loud exclamations of "Wow!  Shannon, did you see that one?!  This is so cool!"  Not to forget all the questions that came with the discovery - "Shannon, where do they land?  Can shooting stars hit planet Earth?  I bet it would hurt to get hit by one.  Ever wonder what they would look like from a plane?"

Sky Over Hungary, 2012

        Last night I waited as long as I could and then grabbed my beach chair and my ipod and trudged up a hill in our yard in the dark.  I laid the chair almost flat - trust me, if you look up at the sky for any length of time without something to lean back on, you will barely be able to move your head the next day - and snuggled into the chair in my pj's and sweatshirt like I used to when I was little.  I found some classical music on my ipod - Vivaldi and Mozart and the like - and it was absolutely lovely.  Vivaldi and Mozart are a much better soundtrack than the noisy cosmic commentary of a 10-year-old.  The temperature was a little brisk, but refreshingly so, and I could smell Autumn lurking just around the corner.  It was a magnificent display of the sublime - and enjoying it alone was galvanizing in a way that is difficult to explain.  There is another meteor shower coming up, so if you missed Perseids - and I doubt anyone got to see the peak with all of the clouds - be sure to make a note on your calendar about the Orionid meteor shower, which will peak on October 21st.

**Fun fact - William Shakespeare is credited with the invention of the phrase, "shooting star":

 "With the eyes of heavy mind, I see thy glory, like a shooting star, Fall to the base earth from the firmament!"  (Richard II)  He is also credited with: good riddance, bedazzle, all's well that ends well, all that glitters is not gold, laughing stock, the naked truth - only a few of dozens!