The Perseids

meteor shower in August · dust from Comet Swift-Tuttle

1.38 AU from Earth

Every August Earth runs through the dust shed by Comet Swift-Tuttle, whose nucleus is 26 km across. The grains, mostly the size of sand, hit the air at 59 km/s and burn up as shooting stars 80 to 120 km up.

• the dust stream along Comet Swift-Tuttle's orbit (spread drawn illustratively)
• Earth crosses it around 12 August · up to about 100 meteors an hour
• the comet returns every 133 years, next in 2126

Numbers that change with time are from 8 November 2026.

kind

comet or meteor shower

distance

1.01 AU from the Sun

orbits

the Sun