by InTrieste
On summer nights, the starry sky offers one of nature’s most captivating performances for astronomy enthusiasts. Tomorrow, Tuesday, during the peak of the Perseid meteor shower, the Antares Astronomical Study Center in Trieste will host Notte delle Perseidi, an open-air stargazing event.
The gathering, open to all ages, will begin at 9:30 p.m. in the “Rose d’inverno” parking area, along the road linking Basovizza to San Lorenzo.
This year, a full moon will brighten the night sky, making it harder to spot the meteor shower’s peak. Yet organizers say the evening will retain its magic, offering visitors a chance to peer through an array of telescopes set up by members of the association. Deep-sky objects such as nebulae and multiple-star systems will be visible, along with the Moon itself and the giant planets Saturn and Neptune — Saturn’s rings appearing exactly edge-on this year, and Neptune showing as a small but distinct bluish disk.
Meteors, often called “shooting stars,” are the result of tiny fragments of cometary or, in some cases, asteroidal debris entering Earth’s atmosphere at speeds of tens of kilometers per second. The collisions with air molecules are so intense that they convert the meteoroid’s kinetic energy into light and heat, producing the glowing streak we see in the sky. As they descend in a process known as ablation, their surfaces heat to the point of vaporization, and they rarely survive the journey to Earth’s surface.
Although meteors can be seen on any night, their numbers rise sharply when Earth crosses the trail of debris left by a comet or asteroid. That is the case with the Perseids, one of the most famous and dazzling meteor showers of the year, generated by the periodic comet 109P/Swift-Tuttle, which orbits the Sun once every 133 years. Between late July and late August each year, Earth passes through its orbit, producing the display that has fascinated observers for centuries.
