2012 Perseid meteor shower coincides with minor planetary alignment

The annual Perseid meteor shower is underway. International observers are reporting 15+ meteors per hour in pre-dawn skies as Earth enters a broad stream of debris from parent comet Swift-Tuttle. The shower has been building since late July. Over the past two weeks, NASA’s All-Sky Meteor Network has recorded more than 57 Perseid fireballs. Their orbits are shown here, with Earth’s position marked in red. The Moon, Venus, and Jupiter are lining up in the eastern sky this weekend–right in the middle of the Perseid meteor shower