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This year’s Perseid meteor shower will peak over the weekend, giving stargazers the opportunity to spot scores of shooting stars in the sky.

According to astronomers, hundreds of meteors will streak across the sky in a display that may be visible around the world.

The Perseid meteor shower occurs every July and August as the Earth passes debris from the Swift-Tuttle comet.

Typical rates are about 80 meteors an hour, but in outburst years (such as in 2016) the rate can be between 150-200 meteors an hour.

Image source Flickr

The meteor shower’s actual peak is around 1PM EDT August 12, which means that the night before and the night after will both have good rates. The show would be slightly better in the predawn hours of August 12, but that there’d be a decent show both nights.

However, experts say the Perseids could be harder to see this year as the Moon will be three-quarters full.

Earth will pass through the path of Comet Swift-Tuttle from July 17 to August 24, with the shower’s peak — when Earth passes through the densest, dustiest area — occurring on August 12. That means you’ll see the most meteors in the shortest amount of time near that peak, but you can still catch some action from the famed meteor shower before or after that point.

The moon will be three-quarters full during the peak. Since the moon will rise late in the evening (around roughly 11 p.m.), there will be some interference from its light that will make it more difficult to see meteors.

You can see the Perseid meteor shower best in the Northern Hemisphere and down to the mid-southern latitudes, and all you need to catch the show is darkness, somewhere comfortable to sit and a bit of patience.

The annual Perseid meteors are expected to put on a spectacular sky show this weekend.

Glare from a waning crescent moon may interfere with viewing.

But the Perseids remain one of the most popular events in the astronomical calendar, with meteor rates expected to reach as many as 100 per hour.

The Perseids are actually pieces of Comet Swift-Tuttle; each year in August, the Earth passes through a cloud of the comet’s debris.

The annual Perseid meteors are expected to put on a spectacular sky show this weekend

The annual Perseid meteors are expected to put on a spectacular sky show this weekend

These tiny pieces of ice and dust (which range from the size of a grain of sand to around as big as a pea) hit the Earth’s atmosphere at some 60 km/s (134,000 mph).

“December’s Geminids often outperform them by a bit, but the Perseids are probably the most-watched meteor shower, because they come in the warm vacation season,” said Alan MacRobert, a senior editor of Sky and Telescope magazine.

The Perseids can be seen all over the sky, but the best viewing opportunities will be across the northern hemisphere.

Their name comes from the fact that meteors in this shower radiate from the direction of the constellation Perseus.

The Earth passed particularly close to Comet Swift-Tuttle in 1992, when the Perseids put on a spectacular display.

The meteor shower has since returned to normal. The comet will not approach so close again until around 2125.