Perseids meteor shower 2026 and 2027

What the Perseids are

The Perseids come from comet 109P/Swift-Tuttle, discovered in 1862 by Lewis Swift and Horace Tuttle. NASA describes it as a large comet, with a nucleus about 16 miles (26 km) wide, that takes around 133 years to orbit the Sun. It last passed through the inner solar system in 1992. Every August, Earth crosses the broad stream of dust the comet has left along its orbit, and the grains burn up high in the atmosphere.

The radiant lies in the constellation Perseus, which rises in the northeast during the evening. The shower is active for more than a month, from mid-July to late August, so you can catch Perseids well before and after the peak, though in smaller numbers.

What they look like

Perseids are fast. NASA notes that they often leave long wakes of light and color behind them. The shower is also known for fireballs, which NASA describes as meteors brighter than magnitude −3 (on this scale, lower numbers are brighter) that come from larger particles and can glow longer than an ordinary meteor streak.

How to watch from the US

Mid-northern latitudes, which covers the lower 48 states, are the best place on Earth for this shower. The International Meteor Organization (IMO) says the radiant reaches a reasonable height from about 10 to 11 p.m. local time and keeps climbing until dawn. That is why the best hours we show for each city come late in the night. Hawaii and Puerto Rico see the radiant lower, but still get a good share of meteors.

Sky darkness matters more than anything else. In a 2021 NASA post, Bill Cooke of NASA’s Meteoroid Environments Office compared rates in the countryside, suburbs and cities and concluded that a dark sky matters most: city observers may see almost none, and the countryside can bring dozens per hour. Drive away from the lights if you can.

Lie back with a wide view of the sky and look about halfway up, in any direction. Our guide to watching a meteor shower covers dark adaptation and what to bring.

Notable history

NASA credits Giovanni Schiaparelli with realizing, in 1865, that comet Swift-Tuttle was the source of the Perseids, only a few years after the comet’s discovery.

IMO’s records show strong activity from a primary maximum through the 1990s, around the comet’s 1992 return. Enhanced activity was last seen in 2016, when Earth passed through separate dust trails. During the 2018, 2020 and 2021 returns, observers reported high rates 0.7 to 1.5 days after the main peak; nothing similar was seen from 2022 through 2025.

2026 and 2027 outlook

2026 (past). The peak fell next to new Moon, which IMO called excellent conditions. IMO also passed on Maslov’s modeling that background rates would be lower than the usual ZHR of 100 until 2026.

2027. IMO’s calendar gathers several predictions, all model results rather than certainties:

• Maslov finds that Jupiter has nudged part of the stream about 0.006 AU (roughly 560,000 miles) closer to Earth’s orbit. He expects this to raise the ZHR by 10 to 20 percent, to about 110 to 120, with a larger rise in 2028.
• The main peak, at the stream’s node, is expected on August 13 between 08h and 10h UT. That is 4 to 6 a.m. EDT and 1 to 3 a.m. PDT, so it falls in darkness over North America, especially in the West.
• Peter Jenniskens’s 2006 tables list a dust-trail encounter on August 12 at 23:46 UT with a ZHR listed as 280. For the US that falls in daylight or around sunset, before the sky is dark. Another trail is listed at 19:18 UT (ZHR about 20) and a filament at 07h UT on August 13 (ZHR 50).
• Maslov and Vaubaillon both flag older trails near 02h UT on August 13.

The Moon is between first quarter and full on the peak nights, so moonlight will shorten the dark window, depending on your latitude. The moon table above shows how much dark time is left at your location. See the 2027 calendar for the full year.