ARCHIVED - The 2021 Perseids meteor shower will peak in Spain on August 12

Shooting stars likely to be highly visible throughout Spain during mid-August

On the evening of July 31, a stunning Perseid fireball was seen over central Spain, produced by a fragment (or meteoroid) from Comet Swift-Tuttle which impacted the atmosphere at about 210.000 km/h.

The fireball began at a height of about 139 km and ended 81 km above the surface of the Earth, and it heralded the start of the annual Perseid meteor shower which lights up the night sky all over Spain in mid-August. This year the best show will be on the 12th August this year and the peak of activity is expected between sunset and midnight, so star-gazing in the early hours of the evening will be a rewarding experience as long as the sky remains clear: all the more so because this is shortly after a new moon and in consequence the light from shooting stars will not be competing with moonlight.

The Perseids are not visible as a major shower but fall at the rate of at least one a minute, although sometimes there can be more. They tend to follow the same trajectory, so after spotting one it is advisable to continue looking at the same part of the sky.

The Perseids are known as the Lágrimas de San Lorenzo, or tears of Saint Lawrence, whose saint’s day is on August 10.

Lawrence’s sainthood derives from events which took place in Rome in 258 AD, when the Roman Emperor Valerian was persecuting the Christians within the city. Having already beheaded the Pope he ordered the Deacon, Lawrence, to bring forward the treasures of his church and show them for what they were.

In response, Lawrence presented the poorest members of his congregation, saying they were Gods' greatest treasures. However, failing to see the poetry and wit in this gesture, the judge trying the case promptly ordered him to be burnt alive on a griddle.

He was said to have died bravely, calling out to his tormentors, "Turn me over, for I am cooked on this side, turn me over, and eat!"

For which he was awarded the ultimate prize for humour in dire circumstances; sainthood, becoming the patron saint of comedians, and rather bizarrely, of butchers and roasters!

The shooting stars are said to represent his tears of agony, hence one of the names given to them, and they also appear to come from the constellation of Perseus.

In astronomical terms, and rather less poetically, the stream of debris consists of particles ejected from the comet 109P/Swift-Tuttle, travelling on a 130-year orbit for around 2000 years. These particles re-enter the earth’s atmosphere at 60 kilometres a second, at a height of 130 kilometres above the surface of the earth, and although it may look as though they are substantial meteorites heading towards the earth are in fact, tiny, varying in size from that of a grain of sand to a pea!

The comet passes by near to the sun every 133 years (the last time it did so was in 1992) and has a large nucleus measuring 26 kilometres in diameter. The number of meteorites left behind during the 1990s were abundant, but the numbers are diminishing now.

Image: archive