If you've looked to the night sky this month, you may have caught a glimpse of shooting stars caused by the Perseid meteor shower.
Peaking on August 11 and 12, the annual display can provide up to 50 shooting stars an hour. But it's not too late for you to spot them, reports the Express.
The Comet Swift-Tuttle, the space rock which supplies the Perseids, has a massive debris field and it takes the Earth more than a month to make its way through.
Earth started travelling through the specks of ice and dust, which are the shooting stars we see, on July 17, and will not be fully out until Monday, August 24.
So star-gazers still have a chance to spot them every night until then. The showers will become less active each day as there is less debris for the Earth to travel through.
The Royal Greenwich Observatory said: "In 2020 the Perseid meteor shower is active between July 17 and August 24, with the number of meteors increasing every night until it reaches a peak in mid-August, after which it will tail off.
"The radiant of the Perseids is actually always above the horizon as seen from the UK, which means that observers in the UK should be able to see some meteors as soon as the sun sets. Therefore, it is worth looking up in the early evening.
"It is always favourable to try and spot meteors when the moon is below the horizon or when it is in its crescent phase, because otherwise it will act as a natural light pollution and will prevent the fainter meteors from being visible."
The Perseid meteor shower gets its name from the constellation of Perseus, where it originates from.
Many Catholics associate the meteor shower with St Lawrence, who was executed on August 10, and dub the shooting stars the "tears of St Lawrence" as they happen at the same time each year.
St Lawrence, the patron saint of cooks, was tortured and martyred by the Romans in AD 258 during the persecution of the emperor Valerian along with many other members of the Roman clergy.
During his torture, St Lawrence was said to have been burned on a grill, and despite the extreme pain he was enduring, supposedly quipped: "Turn me over – I am done on this side!”
