[meteorite-list] NASA TV to Host Perseid Meteor Shower Program

[Ron Baalke]

August 11, 2015

MEDIA ADVISORY M15-122

NASA TV to Host Perseid Meteor Shower Program 

Thanks to a new moon, this week's Perseid meteor shower is expected to be 
one of the best in years, and NASA Television will bring viewers a front row 
seat.

NASA's Marshall Space Flight Center in Huntsville, Alabama, will broadcast 
a live program about this year's Perseid meteor shower from 10 p.m. EDT 
Wednesday, Aug. 12 to 2 a.m. Thursday, Aug. 13. The event will highlight the 
science behind the Perseids, as well as NASA research related to meteors and 
comets. The program will air on NASA TV and NASA's UStream channel.

The Perseids have been observed for at least 2,000 years and are associated 
with the comet Swift-Tuttle, which orbits the sun once every 133 years. Every 
August, the Earth passes through a cloud of the comet's orbital debris. 
This debris field -- mostly created hundreds of years ago -- consists of bits 
of ice and dust shed from the comet which burn up in Earth's atmosphere to 
create one of the premier meteor showers of the year.

The best opportunity to see the Perseid meteor shower is during the dark, 
pre-dawn hours of Aug. 13. The Perseids streak across the sky from many 
directions, with theoretical rates as high as 100 per hour. The last time the 
Perseids peak coincided with a new moon was in 2007, making this one of the 
best potential viewings in years.

Special guests on the live NASA TV broadcast include meteor experts Bill 
Cooke, Danielle Moser and Rhiannon Blaauw, all of NASA's Meteoroid 
Environment Office, located at Marshall. They will provide on-air commentary, 
as well as answer questions online. Also scheduled to join the broadcast are 
experts from NASA's Johnson Space Center in Houston, NASA's Goddard Space 
Flight Center in Greenbelt, Maryland, NASA's Ames Research Center in 
Moffett Field, California, the American Meteor Society and others.

Anyone can join in the conversation by tweeting questions to @NASA_Marshall 
with the hashtag #askNASA. Social media users may also post questions to 
Marshall's Facebook page by replying to the Aug. 12 Perseid Q-and-A 
post.

Watch a NASA ScienceCast video on the 2015 Perseid meteor shower here:

https://www.youtube.com/user/ScienceAtNASA

For more information on NASA's Meteoroid Environment Office, visit:

http://www.nasa.gov/offices/meo/home/

For the latest in "Watch the Sky" news, visit:

http://www.nasa.gov/topics/solarsystem/features/watchtheskies/

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