Sixth Grade
Worksheets
The Perseids Meteor Shower
There are several meteor showers each year that can be seen on Earth at certain times. A meteor shower is when a number of meteors make streaks of light in the same part of the sky. This happens when many meteors pass through Earth's atmosphere at about the same time.
Each of these meteors is tiny - most are about as big as a grain of sand. What makes them visible to us is their speed. Falling through Earth's atmosphere, each particle travels at about 71 km per second--more than 158,000 miles per hour! As they pass through Earth's atmosphere at this speed, they burn up. We see a streak of light across the sky.
Many people think that the Perseids meteor shower is one of the best meteor showers. Meteors from this shower can be seen for a few weeks every year starting in mid-July. At first, just a few are seen each night. The rate builds up as Earth moves along its orbit of the sun, ending in late August. During the peak, as many as sixty to one hundred meteors or "shooting stars" can be seen each hour!
