A meteor shoots across the sky during the annual Perseid meteor shower. (Image from the Guardian.)
If you haven’t spent an evening watching a meteor shower, you haven’t lived. It’s breathtaking.
For the past two years, I’ve convinced someone to watch the Perseid meteor shower with me. It puts me at ease to just lay outside watching astronomy happen. It also thrills me to see someone else share in that joy.
I like to think of it as a “pay it forward” of sorts for the fantastic meteor shower-watching I did while in Youngstown with my friends Kate and Tim. From fields to farmhouses, we went everywhere to get great views of the events. Watching with them was all the better for me, as they were students in the Physics and Astronomy Department at Youngstown State University, who love the stars enough that they got married in 2004 at the school’s planetarium. We watched showers with other folks from the department, on nights I’ll never forget.
It’s an unbelievable feeling when a huge meteor shoots across the night sky, eliciting gasps and pointing from everyone who sees it. It’s worth putting on some bug spray and driving a bit outside the city to enjoy the sight. But, even if you can’t, it’s still worth a few minutes outside, peering up in to the night sky, to get a glimpse or two of the remains of a long-passed comet burning up as they hit the Earth’s atmosphere.
Don’t worry if you miss this year’s show, though. The Perseids come around each August and, if you’re a little more hearty, you can always check out the Leonids in November.
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Chris Geidner is the award-winning senior political editor at D.C.'s Metro Weekly and has written for The Atlantic Online, The American Prospect, Advocate.com, Salon and other publications, as well as at his blog, Law Dork. In 2011, he received the Excellence in News Writing Award from the National Lesbian and Gay Journalists Association for his coverage of "Don't Ask, Don't Tell" repeal. Prior to moving to D.C. in 2009, he served as an attorney on the senior staff at the Ohio Attorney General's Office and had earlier worked for a leading Columbus law firm. An extended biography can be found