Here is the news
Coming to you every hour upon the hour
Here is the news
The weather’s fine
But there may be a meteor shower
– From Electric Light Orchestra’s 1982 concept album “Time”, about a man from 1981 travelling into the far off future of 2095 and having to deal with the stresses and setbacks of the future.
In this song, a news program is playing all the hourly (and quite depressing) headlines, some of which do have basis in reality.
It is a great year to look for Perseid meteors entering Earth’s atmosphere (and burn up), and this weekend is the peak time to do that.
There is a crescent moon in the sky, meaning the sky will be dark.
The best time to catch them is just before dawn— around 3:30 a.m. to 4:30 a.m. local time (eek!).
One can expect to see a Perseid every minute or so, or roughly 40 to 50 an hour during the peak, though rates could be even higher under ideal viewing conditions.
[Photo by Steve Ringman, published in The Seattle Times, 2010]