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what's up for August meteors hello and

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welcome I'm Jane Houston Jones at NASA's

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Jet Propulsion Laboratory in Pasadena

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California 2009 is international year of

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astronomy and each month this year were

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showcasing a great celestial object or

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event this month it's the perseid meteor

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shower have you ever wondered what makes

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these cosmic fireworks meteor showers

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are just the debris of a passing comment

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or sometimes the debris from a

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fragmented asteroid when the comet nears

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the Sun it's icy surface heats up this

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causes clouds of gas dirt and dust to be

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released forming a tale of debris that

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can stretch for millions of miles as

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Earth passes near the dusty tail some of

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the dust particles hit our atmosphere

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they burn up and create the great

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celestial fireworks we see NASA

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generates meteor shower forecasts to

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prevent potential hazards to spacecraft

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that are launching or orbiting Earth

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NASA also monitors these showers to

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check the accuracy of the forecasts

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NASA's Deep Impact mission is now on an

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extended mission called epoxy it will

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visit comet Hartley 2 in 2010 and the

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dawn mission to Vesta and Ceres flies by

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Vesta for the first time in 2011 and

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flies by the dwarf planet Ceres in 2015

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you don't need a telescope or binoculars

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to view a meteor shower in fact meteor

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showers are best seen with the unaided

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eye you'll see some Perseids all month

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long before and after midnight but the

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real fireworks will appear in the wee

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hours of Wednesday August 12 between two

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and four a.m. local time look for up to

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100 meteors per hour meteor showers are

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best seen in the hours after midnight

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that's when the earth is facing the

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direction in which the dust particles

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are colliding with our atmosphere

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and as a bonus for staying up late two

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planets are visible in the eastern sky

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one bright and the other faint venus is

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just rising low on the horizon and is

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much brighter Mars despite that email

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hooks about it being big and bright this

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month appears as a reddish faint

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star-like object above venus and jupiter

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shines as a brilliant beacon in the west

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through a telescope you might even be

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able to see nearby Neptune you can learn

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all about NASA's missions at WWDC gov