PERSEID METEOR SHOWERS RETURNING TO AUGUST SKIES

Badlands National Park will conduct its fifth annual "Focus on Night Sky Week" from August 12 through 18, 2001. Each evening during the week, a Night Sky presentation will be held from 10:00 p.m. to 11:00 p.m. Meet at the Cedar Pass Campground Amphitheater. Note that programs will be cancelled in case of lightning storms or overcast skies.

The South Dakota sky, with its clean air, is the envy of the country. During August nights, the Dakota skies become especially spectacular when as many as 30 "falling stars" per hour streak across portions of the dark sky. Falling stars are actually bits of dust that are left over from the formation of the solar system. These dust particles are at most a fraction of an inch in diameter and are more properly called “meteoroids.” When they pass into the Earth’s atmosphere and burn up from friction, they are renamed “meteors.” Taken as a group, these August meteors are called the “Perseid Showers” because the individual meteors appear to be coming from the constellation Perseus. Perseus is located near the more familiar Cassiopeia constellation, which is the big, lopsided “W” or “M” in the northern sky.

Whatever we choose to call them, these small meteors provide an awe-inspiring show on a pleasant August night. For more information, contact Badlands National Park Public Information Officer Marianne M. Mills, or Summer Intern Barbara Mayer, at (605) 433-5244.