Residents of Hanoi will be able to watch the Perseid meteor shower from 1 to 2am on Friday, with the number of meteor sightings expected to double, compared to last year.

Pham Tuan Anh, from the Vietnam National Satellite Centre, told Dan Tri online newspaper that in good weather conditions, the most suitable direction for watching would be about 30 degrees to the northeast.

According to the National Aeronautics and Space Administration (NASA), each year in August the Swift-Tuttle comet puts on a brilliant show. 

When the Earth plows into its wake, tiny bits of debris left behind from the comet slam into our atmosphere at 132,000 miles per hour, reaching temperatures of 3,000 to 10,000 degrees, and streak across the sky in what has become the Perseid meteor shower.

In a normal year, those watching can see 60 to 100 meteors per hour. But this year is not a normal year. 

Under perfect conditions, there might be as many as 200 meteors per hour to be seen, said Bill Cooke, NASA’s head of meteoroid environments, in a press statement. 

VNS