We are in the midst of a meteor shower.

Right now, Earth is twirling through the tail of Halley's Comet, arguably the most famous comet in our solar system.

And as tiny grain-of-rice-size bits of debris smack into our atmosphere and burn up, they sizzle through the sky in a month-long annual spectacle known as the Eta Aquarids.

They run from April 20 until May 21 this year and will reach their peak on the evening of Thursday, May 5.

Lucky stargazers in the Southern Hemisphere will see meteors dash through the sky at a rate of about 30 or 40 per hour. But Northern stargazers won't be left completely in the dust — they'll still be able to see about 10 to 20 meteors per hour.

How to watch

Prime time for the Eta Aquarids will be during the shower's peak, May 5 through May 7. The new moon on May 6 will offer the darkest skies, providing a perfect backdrop for the shooting stars.

Plan on camping out one or two hours before twilight, as our planet turns into the meteor stream.

You won't need any telescopes or fancy equipment to see the meteors, just clear skies, your eyes, and a little bit of patience. Find a dark, remote spot away from the light pollution of nearby towns and cities, make yourself comfortable, and set aside a good chunk of time to enjoy show.

"Give yourself at least an hour of viewing time for watching any meteor shower,"EarthSky.org advises. "Meteors tend to come in spurts that are interspersed by lulls. Also, it can take as long as 20 minutes for your eyes to adapt to the dark."

If bad weather or bright lights are preventing you from catching any meteors, Slooh, an online observatory, will be offering a live broadcast of the meteor shower from an observatory on the Canary Islands. See the broadcast stream below.

During the broadcast, professional astronomers will discuss the meteor shower and take questions from the public.

Although Halley's Comet, a ball of ice and rock left over from the formation of our solar system, only makes an appearance every 75 years — we haven't seen it since 1986 — Earth passes through its tail twice a year. We'll pass through Halley's tail again in late October, resulting in the Orionid meteor shower.

What causes a meteor shower?

The orbits of comets are often a little lopsided.

When a comet swings too close to the sun, the sun's light boils its icy surface, releasing particles of ice and dust.

This debris follows the comet's path, forming a tail that points away from the sun. As Earth crosses the orbit of this comet, we pass through the tail.

The gravity of our planet attracts the dust and ice Halley has left in its wake. When the debris is pulled into our atmosphere, it rubs up against air molecules, causing the debris to burn up and streak through the sky.

This results in glowing trails of light that we see as meteors, or "shooting stars."

During the Eta Aquarids, Earth will collide head on with the debris and meteors will travel through our atmosphere at a speed of about 40 miles per second.

They can appear anywhere in the sky, but if you trace their paths back, they all appear to come from the same point: the radiant. That's because the meteors are all approaching us at the same angle. Meteor showers are all named after the radiant that the meteors can be traced back to.

This particular shower's radiant, the faint star Eta Aquarii, is 168 light-years away in the constellation Aquarius. It is south of the celestial equator, which is why observers in the Southern Hemisphere get a better show.

Check out the livestream from Slooh on Thursday, May 5, at 8 p.m. EST below:

SEE ALSO: How to watch this week's meteor shower created by Halley's Comet

DON'T MISS: How to watch tonight's stunning meteor shower created by Halley's Comet

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The opening ceremony for the 2020 Olympics may feature something we've never seen before.

Japanese company ALE has designed a way to trigger an artificial meteor shower, and now it's bidding to open the next Olympic Games in Tokyo.

The human-made meteor shower will feature 500 to 1,000 "source particles" that will each serve as a mock meteor.

The company will launch a satellite into space that's designed to drop the particles once it reaches a certain altitude. 

Each particle is just a few millimeters across, but once they hit the atmosphere, they'll burn up through a process called plasma emission and put on a spectacular light show. 

It's called the Sky Canvas Project, and the company estimates it will be visible from a 100-kilometer radius. Up to 30 million people in the Tokyo area will be able to watch. 

The company has done some preliminary testing by setting the particles loose in a vacuum chamber and bombarding them with hot gas to simulate the conditions they'll experience when they re-enter the atmosphere. Depending on what material the particles are made of, they glow in different colors.

The company estimates the particles will cost about $8,100 apiece, so that's somewhere around $4,050,000 to $8,100,000 to produce enough particles for the whole show. 

This has uses beyond just a dazzling pyrotechnic show. The company hopes to use the research to demonstrate that old, broken satellites in space can be safely de-orbited and burned up in the atmosphere.

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A hordeofnewsoutlets reported that Japanese company ALE plans to open the 2020 Tokyo Olympics with an artificial meteor shower, but the startup told Tech Insider that's a bit premature.

"Our shooting stars are intended for large-scale events and we would like to aim for the Olympics," spokesperson Rie Yamamoto wrote in an email, noting that ALE is not bidding on any kind of display at the games.

Still, what's not to like about the idea of an on-demand, artificial meteor shower in the colors you choose?

Manufacturing such a celestial event has a long way to go before it's a reality, and would be a sight to behold, but at least one space researcher is worried it could add to the growing cloud of space debris orbiting the Earth.

Each year, dozens of satellites and spacecraft are launched into orbit around the planet. Some fail when they get there, or eventually stop working, leaving them afloat in the "graveyard" of space tens to hundreds of miles above the Earth.

NASA currently tracks over 500,000 objects larger than a marble — 20,000 of which are bigger than a softball. Each one has the potential to catastrophically damage the International Space Station (ISS), so crew members take cover anytime they go by a particularly large hunk of space junk.

Some apocalyptic sci-fi minds even say that if we continued at this launch pace without cleaning up the space debris, we would eventually create a barrier of junk so thick that we wouldn't be able to leave the Earth. (WALL-E, anyone?)

That's a little far-fetched, of course, but it illustrates how dire the growing space debris problem has become.

NASA, the European Space Agency, and other organizations are coming up with ways to clean up the space environment, but they haven't settled on a winning, feasible idea yet.

This is why aerospace engineer and space debris expert Hugh Lewis, from the University of Southampton, told Tech Insider that he thinks launching satellites to create artificial meteor showers is unwise.

"It's purely an aesthetic kind of mission," he said. "The issue I have with it is that in order to gain that aesthetic you're temporarily polluting the environment, and that's something we're working very hard not to do."

The company's plan is to launch a satellite about 320 miles up that would release hundreds of pellets, which would ignite and become shooting stars as they re-entered the atmosphere around 40 miles up.

ALE says it has developed software to determine the likelihood of colliding with other objects in space so its satellites and artificial meteors could hopefully avoid them.

"We [would] ensure that our pellets do not hit the International Space Station or other satellites based on the ISS data from the Joint Space Operations Center," Yamamoto told Tech Insider in the email. "Also, when we discharge our pellets from the satellite, we'll provide our data to [Joint Space Operations Center] as well so that they can confirm that it won't hit satellites or the ISS."

Lewis said he's glad ALE is considering how they'll deal with — and hopefully not contribute to — space debris, but he still questions whether the company should attempt an artificial meteor shower at all.

"It could work, but the challenge is to avoid the existing satellites that are there and all the debris as well," Lewis said. "I think it’s a bad idea, but it's really good that they acknowledge that there is an issue with space debris. It's important to emphasize that. Ten years ago, people probably wouldn't have been thinking on those lines."

SEE ALSO: Here's what you actually see while you're watching a meteor shower

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NOW WATCH: Here’s how the Space Station avoids hitting the thousands of pieces of junk in space

Shooting stars, meteors, and full-on meteor showers are wonders to behold. These celestial light shows occur when gas, dust, and space debris burn up in Earth's atmosphere.

But they don't happen as often as we might like, nor do they predictably occur exactly when and where we'd like them to.

So a startup called ALE, with scientific collaborators from Japanese universities, wants to manufacture shooting stars with a sky-high project called "Sky Canvas."

You can kind of see how it would work in this promotional video they made:

ALE's plan is to launch a satellite about 310 miles up, where it would release 500 to 1,000 pellets — each containing different elements to make them burn up in different colors.

Once the pellets fly one-third of the way around the Earth, they'd reenter the atmosphere about 40 miles up and ignite, becoming tiny shooting stars.

The company has tested the pellets in the lab, and reported they could be bright enough to see even under the glow of city lights.

A numberofnewsoutlets reported that the company planned to open the 2020 Tokyo Olympics Opening Ceremony with their artificial meteor shower, but ALE said that isn't the case.

"Our shooting stars are intended for large-scale events and we would like to aim for the Olympics," Spokeswoman Rie Yamamoto told Tech Insider in an email. "However, our product is still in development and we have not formally talked to the Olympic committee so any articles claiming that we 'will' or that we have 'already bid / proposed' are technically false."

But would this actually work?

Aerospace engineer and space debris expert Hugh Lewis, from the University of Southampton, told Tech Insider that creating an artificial meteor shower is possible.

Doing so at the altitude ALE is planning to, however, could be problematic.

"The issue is that low-Earth orbit is the most congested orbit. The International Space Station is up at that altitude," he said. "It could work, but the challenge is to avoid the existing satellites that are there and all the debris as well."

The company would likely have to get approval from the Japanese government in order to launch the satellite in the first place, Lewis said, so hopefully they could mitigate any negative effects on the space environment before then.

"If the process is in place and they've thought through all the issues and have a way to address them, then you get a great show," he said. "The trick is to address all those issues and still accomplish what you want to do."

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NOW WATCH: Here's what you actually see while you're watching a meteor shower

NASA tracks more than 10,000 Near Earth Objects (NEOs) in space. Millions of years ago, one of these NEOs hit Earth, wiping out the dinosaurs. No person has every been killed by one in recorded human history. Using Purdue University's Impact Earth and data from NASA, we calculated the destruction different size asteroids would cause if they hit land.

Produced by Kevin Reilly. Animations by Rob Ludacer. Special thanks to Julia Calderone.

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The Perseids, one of the most popular meteor showers of the year, is coming up in just under a month. But you don’t have to wait until August to see shooting stars light up the sky.

Right now, we are in the middle of a meteor shower called the Delta Aquarids, which began around July 12.

Around July 28 and 29, the Delta Aquarids will reach their peak. Although the shower favors the southern hemisphere, northern observers won’t be completely left in the dust. During this peak, you might be able to see as many as 20 meteors an hour.

After the peak, the Delta Aquarids will continue until around August 23, overlapping with the Perseid meteor shower (which peaks in mid-August).

How to watch

The best time to watch the sky for these shooting stars is in the hours between midnight and dawn, around 2 or 3 am.

Because Delta Aquarid meteors can be a little faint, it’s important to look for them in a dark sky, free of moonlight and artificial lights.

Since the beginning of August marks a new moon, the peak of the Delta Aquarids will be blessed with waning crescent moons, which means darker skies and more visible meteors.

If bad weather or bright lights are preventing you from catching any meteors, Slooh, an online observatory, will be offering a live broadcast of the meteor shower from an observatory on the Canary Islands. See the broadcast stream below.

During the broadcast, professional astronomers will discuss the meteor shower and take questions from the public.

What causes a meteor shower?

The orbits of comets are often a little lopsided.

When a comet swings too close to the sun, the sun's light boils its icy surface, releasing particles of ice and dust.

This debris follows the comet's path, forming a tail that points away from the sun. As Earth crosses the orbit of this comet, we pass through the tail.

The gravity of our planet attracts the dust and ice that the comet has left in its wake. When the debris is pulled into our atmosphere, it rubs up against air molecules, causing the debris to burn up and streak through the sky.

This results in glowing trails of light that we see as meteors, or "shooting stars."

The comet producing the meteors in the Delta Aquarids is a bit of a mystery. According to EarthSky, it was originally thought to come from the Marsden and Kracht sungrazing comets. More recently, the Comet 96P Machholz that was discovered in 1986 has been the prime suspect.

A small fraction of Delta Aquarid meteors leave something called a persistent meteor train, which is a glowing trail that can linger for a couple seconds after the meteor has shot by.

The meteors can appear anywhere in the sky, but if you trace their paths back, they all appear to come from the same point: the radiant. That's because the meteors are all approaching us at the same angle. Meteor showers are all named after the radiant that the meteors can be traced back to.

The radiant point for the Delta Aquarids is nearby star Skat, or Delta Aquarii.

Delta Aquarid vs. Perseid meteors

To figure out whether you’re seeing a Delta Aquarid meteor or a Perseid meteor, you can trace the meteors backward through the sky to find their radiant. According to EarthSky, the Delta Aquarids will appear to radiate from the nearby star Skat, or Delta Aquarii, which is in the constellation Aquarius the Water Bearer.

If you’re in the Northern Hemisphere, the Delta Aquarids will be appear to come from the south, while the Perseids, radiating from the constellation Perseus, appear to originate in the northeast or north.

In the Southern Hemisphere, the Delta Aquarids will appear to radiate from just about overhead, while the Perseids will dart up from the northern horizon.

Check out the livestream from Slooh on Thursday, July 28 below:

SEE ALSO: Tonight’s meteor shower is going to be amazing thanks to one special element — here's how to watch

DON'T MISS: Here's how a Japanese startup plans to make artificial meteor showers on-demand

Join the conversation about this story »

NOW WATCH: Here's what you actually see while you're watching a meteor shower

With the Delta Aquarid meteor shower going on right now, and the crowd-favorite Perseid meteor shower hot on its heels, the next few weeks are going to be the prime-time to watch some shooting stars light up the night sky.

But while dust-size bits of comets sizzling through our atmosphere put on a pretty awesome show, the consequences of Earth confronting one of these comets head-on could actually be pretty disastrous.

It's not something that you should be worried about, of course. NASA is on the lookout for any cosmic objects on a crash course with our planet, and it's found that the chances of us colliding with a comet or asteroid anytime soon are pretty low.

It's still interesting to think about, though. What would happen if one of these ancient, celestial chunks of ice, dust, and rock smacked into our planet?

The 16-mile-wide Swift-Tuttle comet — the progenitor of the Perseid meteor shower —hurtles through space at about 36 miles per second, more than 150 times the speed of sound.

If a comet of this size struck Earth, then the energy of the impact would be about as much as 300 times that of the asteroid that scientists believed wiped out the dinosaurs, Donald Yeomans, a senior research scientist at NASA's Jet Propulsion Laboratory, told LiveScience.

And the size of a comet or asteroid isn't the only thing to consider with cosmic collisions. While the impact of the comet would be pretty destructive, the brunt of the damage would come from the gases it released in Earth's atmosphere.

"Sulfur dioxide would initially cause cooling, and then carbon dioxide would lead to long-term warming," LiveScience writes. "An event like this would likely cause the planet's climate to change drastically, leading to mass extinctions around the globe."

A comet colliding with Earth wouldn’t necessarily signal mass extinctions and the end of human civilization, though.

While a comet landing smack dab in the ocean could trigger earthquakes and tsunamis, its atmospheric effects would actually be eased by the ocean. Considering that 70% of Earth is covered in ocean, our odds aren't terrible.

But let's hope that we don't have to roll the dice anytime soon.

SEE ALSO: Here's the destruction different asteroids would cause if they hit Earth

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The Perseids, one of the most popular meteor showers of the year, is coming up in just under a month. But you don’t have to wait until August to see shooting stars light up the sky.

Right now, we are in the middle of a meteor shower called the Delta Aquarids, which began around July 12.

Tonight and tomorrow, the Delta Aquarids will reach their peak. Although the shower favors the southern hemisphere, northern observers won’t be completely left in the dust. During this peak, you might be able to see as many as 20 meteors an hour.

After the peak, the Delta Aquarids will continue until around August 23, overlapping with the Perseid meteor shower (which peaks in mid-August).

How to watch

The best time to watch the sky for these shooting stars is in the hours between midnight and dawn, around 2 or 3 am.

Because Delta Aquarid meteors can be a little faint, it’s important to look for them in a dark sky, free of moonlight and artificial lights.

Since the beginning of August marks a new moon, the peak of the Delta Aquarids will be blessed with waning crescent moons, which means darker skies and more visible meteors.

If bad weather or bright lights are preventing you from catching any meteors, Slooh, an online observatory, will be offering a live broadcast of the meteor shower from an observatory on the Canary Islands. See the broadcast stream below.

During the broadcast, professional astronomers will discuss the meteor shower and take questions from the public.

What causes a meteor shower?

The orbits of comets are often a little lopsided.

When a comet swings too close to the sun, the sun's light boils its icy surface, releasing particles of ice and dust.

This debris follows the comet's path, forming a tail that points away from the sun. As Earth crosses the orbit of this comet, we pass through the tail.

The gravity of our planet attracts the dust and ice that the comet has left in its wake. When the debris is pulled into our atmosphere, it rubs up against air molecules, causing the debris to burn up and streak through the sky.

This results in glowing trails of light that we see as meteors, or "shooting stars."

The comet producing the meteors in the Delta Aquarids is a bit of a mystery. According to EarthSky, it was originally thought to come from the Marsden and Kracht sungrazing comets. More recently, the Comet 96P Machholz that was discovered in 1986 has been the prime suspect.

A small fraction of Delta Aquarid meteors leave something called a persistent meteor train, which is a glowing trail that can linger for a couple seconds after the meteor has shot by.

The meteors can appear anywhere in the sky, but if you trace their paths back, they all appear to come from the same point: the radiant. That's because the meteors are all approaching us at the same angle. Meteor showers are all named after the radiant that the meteors can be traced back to.

The radiant point for the Delta Aquarids is nearby star Skat, or Delta Aquarii.

Delta Aquarid vs. Perseid meteors

To figure out whether you’re seeing a Delta Aquarid meteor or a Perseid meteor, you can trace the meteors backward through the sky to find their radiant. According to EarthSky, the Delta Aquarids will appear to radiate from the nearby star Skat, or Delta Aquarii, which is in the constellation Aquarius the Water Bearer.

If you’re in the Northern Hemisphere, the Delta Aquarids will be appear to come from the south, while the Perseids, radiating from the constellation Perseus, appear to originate in the northeast or north.

In the Southern Hemisphere, the Delta Aquarids will appear to radiate from just about overhead, while the Perseids will dart up from the northern horizon.

Check out the livestream from Slooh below:

SEE ALSO: Tonight’s meteor shower is going to be amazing thanks to one special element — here's how to watch

DON'T MISS: Here's how a Japanese startup plans to make artificial meteor showers on-demand

Join the conversation about this story »

NOW WATCH: Here's what you actually see while you're watching a meteor shower

We call them "shooting stars."

That's because they streak across the sky leaving behind thin glowing trails of light.

But meteors aren't really stars at all. They're actually cosmic debris: Tiny specks of dust and ice released from comets that pass too close to the sun.

As Earth passes through this debris, the specks get pulled into our atmosphere, where they rub up against air molecules, then burn up. This creates the streaking that we see in the sky.

Here are the annual meteor showers that you won't want to miss.

SEE ALSO: Here's what you're actually seeing during Thursday night's beautiful meteor shower

DON'T MISS: Tonight, a meteor shower created by a mysterious comet will reach its peak — here’s how to watch

The Quadrantids

The Quadrantids are usually active in January. Usually, you can see an an average of about 25 meteors shoot through the sky every hour in dark skies. The radiant point, or the point in the sky that the meteors seem to be shooting from, is the northern tip of the Boötes constellation, near the Big Dipper. This meteor shower is best seen from the northern hemisphere.

Source: EarthSky, American Meteor Society

The Lyrids

The Lyrids are active in April. During the shower's peak, about 10 to 15 meteors can be seen every hour in dark skies. But there can also be rare surges that can boost the rate up to 100 per hour. The radiant point is the star Vega in the constellation Lyra. The Lyrids are best seen from the northern hemisphere.

Source: EarthSky, American Meteor Society

The Eta Aquarids

The Eta Aquarids are active from April to May. Depending on where you are, you could see anywhere from 10 to 60 meteors every hour. The radiant for this shower is the star Eta, in the constellation Aquarius, the Water Bearer. The Eta Aquarids are best seen from the southern hemisphere.

Source: EarthSky, American Meteor Society

The Perseid meteor shower is set to illuminate the night sky with hundreds of falling stars on early Friday morning. Experts are saying that this year's show will be especially stunning with up to 200 meteors per hour. Watch how and where you can see the best show possible.

If you can't get up on Friday morning to enjoy the show, then the online observatory Slooh will host a live broadcast of the meter shower at 8 p.m. ET. You can watch it here.

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The Perseids, the most-watched meteor shower of the year, is happening right now.

As our planet spins through the tail of the Swift-Tuttle comet, tiny grain-of-rice-size bits of debris smack into our atmosphere and burn up, sizzling through the sky like shooting stars.

The meteor shower runs from July 17 until August 24 this year and will reach its peak in the evening hours of August 11.

And this year, a strange effect of the most massive planet in our solar system will make the Perseids twice as good.

"Forecasters are predicting a Perseid outburst this year with double normal rates on the night of Aug. 11-12," Bill Cooke, with NASA's Meteoroid Environments Office, said in a press release. "Under perfect conditions, rates could soar to 200 meteors per hour."

How to watch

Prime time for the Perseids will be during the shower's peak, August 11 and 12. The best time to head outside and catch some meteors is between midnight and dawn.

Unfortunately, some of the meteors will be drowned out by a waxing moon, which is when the moon is just a little greater than half full. But once the moon fully sets, at about 1 a.m., you'll be in the clear.

You won't need any telescopes or fancy equipment to see the meteors — just clear skies, your eyes, and a little bit of patience. Find a dark, remote spot away from the light pollution of nearby towns and cities, make yourself comfortable, and set aside a good chunk of time to enjoy the show.

Perseids meteors are bright and fast, and they often leave persistent trains, which is when the bright streak lingers in the sky. They are best seen from the northern hemisphere. The meteors travel at the mind-numbing speed of 132,000 miles per hour — 500 times faster than the fastest car in the world.

"Give yourself at least an hour of viewing time for watching any meteor shower,"EarthSky.org advises. "Meteors tend to come in spurts that are interspersed by lulls. Also, it can take as long as 20 minutes for your eyes to adapt to the dark."

If bad weather or bright lights are preventing you from catching any meteors, Slooh, an online observatory, will offer a live broadcast of the meteor shower from an observatory on the Canary Islands. The broadcast stream is below.

During the broadcast, professional astronomers will discuss the meteor shower and answer questions from the public.

What causes a meteor shower?

The orbits of comets are often a little lopsided.

When a comet swings too close to the sun, the sun's light boils its icy surface, releasing particles of ice and dust.

This debris follows the comet's path, forming a tail that points away from the sun. As Earth crosses the orbit of this comet, we pass through the tail.

The gravity of our planet attracts the dust and ice that the comet has left in its wake. When the debris is pulled into our atmosphere, it rubs up against air molecules, causing the debris to burn up and streak through the sky.

This results in glowing trails of light that we see as meteors, or "shooting stars."

The comet producing the meteors in the Perseids is Swift-Tuttle, which takes 133 years to make its trip around the sun.

Swift-Tuttle is a 16-mile-wide hunk of space rock that, traveling at 130,000 mph, takes 133 years to orbit the sun. It's the largest object in our solar system that makes repeated close approaches to Earth.

This year, Jupiter's monstrous gravitational pull will nudge particles from Swift-Tuttle about 930,000 miles closer to Earth, resulting in brighter, stronger meteors shooting across the sky. Instead of the usual 60 to 90 meteors per hour, this year's shower could produce as many as 200 per hour.

The meteors can appear anywhere in the sky, but if you trace their paths back, they all appear to come from the same point: the radiant. That's because the meteors are all approaching us at the same angle. Meteor showers are all named after the radiant that the meteors can be traced to.

The radiant point for the Perseids is from the constellation Perseus the Hero.

Check out the livestream from Slooh on Thursday, August 11, at 8 p.m. EST:

SEE ALSO: 13 spectacular meteor showers that you won't want to miss

DON'T MISS: Stunning pictures from the Perseid meteor shower

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NOW WATCH: Here's a time-lapse of the Perseids — the most stunning meteor shower of the year

Early Friday morning, the annual Perseid meteor shower peaked.

It's already the most-watched annual meteor shower, but this year's is extra special. That's because Jupiter happens to be in the right place to nudge the comet that causes the shower closer to Earth.

The world took advantage of this unusual celestial occasion, staying up late or waking up early and sharing their best sightings on Twitter and Instagram. Here are some of the most incredible images we found of the night's light show.

If you're feeling inspired to try to catch some shooting stars, the meteor shower continues through August 24.

SEE ALSO: The most spectacular meteor shower of the year is going to be extra special tonight — here's how to watch

NOW WATCH: Here's a time-lapse of the Perseids — the most stunning meteor shower of the year

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The view from Zambia.

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Four billion years ago, Jupiter, Saturn, Uranus, and Neptune battled for position within our solar system. But some scientists suspect that there was a fifth planet, similar in size to Neptune, that was also part of the battle.

Now, scientists think that a mysterious meteor could be evidence of that fifth Neptune-size planet.

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NASA tracks more than 10,000 Near Earth Objects (NEOs) in space. Millions of years ago, one of these NEOs hit Earth, wiping out the dinosaurs. No person has ever been killed by one in recorded human history. Using Purdue University's Impact Earth and data from NASA, we calculated the destruction different size asteroids would cause if they hit land.

Produced by Kevin Reilly. Animations by Rob Ludacer. Special thanks to Julia Calderone.

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Stargazers could wrap up their year with watching the Geminids meteor shower. While some may be able to spot a few shooting stars during the Ursids meteor shower, which is later in the year, Geminids meteor shower is the last chance to witness a whole lot of them before it turns 2017.

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Oceans cover 71% of the Earth's surface. If an asteroid were to strike us, it would probably land in the water. This award-winning animation from Los Alamos National Lab shows a detailed simulation of how it might happen.

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Flash...boom.

It took just seconds for a bright green fireball — and apparent meteor — to streak across the dark sky over Wisconsin at about 1:31 am Monday morning. But thanks to the magic (and paranoia) of our digital age, there's tons of security and dash-cam video of the event, and it's already all over the internet.

Here's a shot from Plover, Wisconsin, shared by the local National Weather Service (NWS) station on Twitter:

Here's the view from the University of Wisconsin campus:

Here's another shot from a car:

Here's the view from a police car:

NWS Milwaukee staff also shared a radar image showing what they believe is the meteor over Lake Michigan:

If any of the space-rock reached the surface, the lake is likely where it ended up. Though the flash looks low to the ground in some of those clips, that's a bit misleading; it was high enough to see from all the way in Illinois:

This video from the American Meteor Society shows its estimated path, and suggests it was visible from Illinois, Wisconsin, Michigan, Indian, Ohio, Indiana, New York, Ontario, Kentucky, Iowa and Minnesota:

SEE ALSO: You're probably showering way too often

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NOW WATCH: Here's what you actually see while you're watching a meteor shower

A future in which an asteroid crashes into Earth and destroys the planet — or all life on it, in the case of the dinosaurs — is prevalent in popular culture: Bruce Willis sacrificed himself to stop in happening in Armageddon, aliens have arrived on one in Day of the Triffids, and there have been a multitude of apocalyptic predictions on the news over the last few years.

So, what is the precise nature of asteroids, and how likely are they wipe us from the face of the planet?

Asteroids are rocky bodies orbiting the Sun, which differ from comets in that they are composed of metal and rock rather ice, dust, and rock. They were formed 4.5 billion years ago, but don't have sufficient gravity to round out like planets or have atmospheres.

Several asteroids have played pivotal roles in the world's formation and cosmic history. An asteroid the size of Mars, which has been retrospectively named Theia, hit the Earth and was partially absorbed: some debris from the impact, though, was conglomerated by gravity to form the Moon. The most famous asteroid, though, is Chicxulub — the asteroid that wiped out the dinosaurs by causing sufficient sulphur displacement to block out the Sun.

Small asteroids hit Earth frequently, but rarely have any effect — the most violent example in recent memory was the 17- to 20-meter diameter Chelyabinsk meteor which hit Russia in February 2013, smashing windows and injuring 1,400 people in the process. Asteroids with a one-kilometer diameter hit Earth every 500,000 years or so; with the last known example of one with a 10-kilometer diameter occurring 66 million years ago. The chances of an asteroid apocalypse, then, are minimal.

Peter Brown, professor of physics and astronomy at Western University in London, Ontario, said in an interview with CBC News:

There certainly is a risk from asteroid impacts; it's the only natural risk that we as a species have the ability to predict well in advance and mitigate against, entirely, […] But I want people to keep it in context. You shouldn't be losing sleep over it.

Our plan to avoid destruction

Despite the chances of an asteroid apocalypse being fortunately slim, our planet has measures in place to protect against smaller near Earth objects (NEOs) like the Chelyabinsk meteor.

The main agency responsible for tracking and putting contingency measures in place is NASA's Center for Near Earth Object Studies, which has a database sophisticated enough for us "to know within the next couple of decades for sure if any time over the next century if there's an asteroid that's going to hit," Brown said in the interview. The organization, according to its 2016 report, is also developing "Methods for NEO Deflection and Disruption."

NASA has already launched a progenitor for how a gravity-based asteroid diversion could work in the form of its Dawn Aircraft, which is currently orbiting the space rock Vesta.

A future version of Dawn could exert a subtle gravitational pull on a space object, which would allow it to change the trajectory of rocks with remarkable subtlety and specificity. 

Rusty Schweickart, chairman of the B612 Foundation, who's mission is to protect the world from asteroid attacks, said in an interview with Space.com, "you can get a very precise change in the orbit for the final part of the deflection using a technology of this kind."

At the more futurist end of our planetary defense arsenal is the idea of "Mirror Bees." Hypothetically, we could send a swarm of robotic spacecraft bearing mirrorsto an asteroid, which would then focus the solar energy on one spot: Bill Nye, executive director of the Planetary Society, said to Space.com that "The reaction of that gas or material being ejected from the asteroid would nudge it off-course."

While the threat of a dinosaur-level disaster is extremely slim, even small asteroids can still cause huge amounts of damage, destruction, and pain. It's comforting that individuals and organizations are working towards developing methods to minimize the disruption asteroids — big or small — can cause.

SEE ALSO: Chinese scientists just teleported an object into Earth's orbit for the first time

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• The Perseid meteor shower occurs each year in late summer.
• This year, the astronomical event peaks on Friday, Saturday, and Sunday.
• A bright moon will make seeing the meteors more challenging, but NASA says stargazers can expect to see one every couple of minutes.

Right now, Earth is plowing through a cloud of tiny bits of comet dust, turning the rice-grain-size debris into what many call shooting stars.

Known as the Perseid meteor shower, this recurring astronomical event is easily the most watched — and beautiful— shower every year.

The Perseids in 2017 is from July 13 until August 26, and it will peak in the late evening and early morning on Friday, Saturday, and Sunday, according to EarthSky.org.

Some websites have claimed that there will be more visible meteors per minute this year than at any other time in nearly a century, but experts say this is hogwash.

"This year, we are expecting enhanced rates of about 150 per hour or so, but the increased number will be cancelled out by the bright moon, the light of which will wash out the fainter Perseids," Bill Cooke, who leads NASA's Meteoroid Environment Office, wrote in a blog post on Thursday. "A meteor every couple of minutes is good, and certainly worth going outside to look, but it is hardly the 'brightest shower in human history.'"

How to watch

This year's conditions will be challenging for two reasons.

First, there'll be a waning gibbous moon — the full moon will have just ended, but it will still be full and bright.

Second, the moon will rise in the evening and set near dawn. Normally the best time to watch for meteors is after the moon sets. TimeAndDate.com has a convenient moonrise and moonset tool to find out when that will happen in your location. In New York, for example, the moon will set at around 6:44 a.m. on Tuesday.

Given this year's conditions, the best time to head outside is between midnight and dawn. The closer to dawn the better — though twilight begins to eat up the dark sky a couple of hours before the sun rises.

You won't need any telescopes or fancy equipment to see the meteors — just clear skies, your eyes, and a bit of patience. Find a dark, remote spot away from the light pollution of nearby towns and cities, make yourself comfortable, and set aside a good chunk of time to enjoy the show.

"Give yourself at least an hour of viewing time for watching any meteor shower,"EarthSky.org advises. "Meteors tend to come in spurts that are interspersed by lulls. Also, it can take as long as 20 minutes for your eyes to adapt to the dark."

Perseid meteors are bright and fast, and they often leave persistent trains, or the bright streaks that linger in the sky. They are best seen from the Northern Hemisphere, and they travel at the mind-numbing speed of 132,000 mph — 500 times as fast as the fastest car in the world.

What causes a meteor shower?

When a comet swings too close to the sun, the sun's light boils its icy surface, releasing particles of ice and dust.

This debris coming off the comet forms a tail that points away from the sun. As Earth crosses the orbit of this comet, it passes through the tail.

An interactive animation by Ian Webster at meteorshowers.org illustrates how this works:

The gravity of our planet attracts the dust and ice that the comet leaves in its wake. When that debris is pulled into our atmosphere, it rubs up against air molecules, causing it to burn up and streak through the sky.

That process results in the glowing trails of light that we see as meteors, or "shooting stars."

The comet producing the meteors in the Perseids is Swift-Tuttle, a 16-mile-wide hunk of space rock that takes 133 years to orbit the sun. It's the largest object in our solar system that makes repeated close approaches to Earth.

The meteors can appear anywhere in the sky, but if you trace their paths back, they all appear to come from the same point, called the radiant. That's because the meteors are all approaching us at the same angle.

Meteor showers are all named after their radiant. The radiant for the Perseids is the constellation Perseus, the Greek mythological hero.

Ali Sundermier wrote a previous version of this story.

SEE ALSO: 18 stunning images of the Perseid meteor shower from around the world

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NOW WATCH: Here's a time-lapse of the Perseids — the most stunning meteor shower of the year

Get ready to see two of the most spectacular cosmic events of this year. This is how to watch the meteor shower and solar eclipse of August, 2017.

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