Meteor Shower tonight

An easy science lesson for you tonight. A spectacular presentation without any effort on your part, aside from maybe providing the bug spray.

Here is the description from the National Geographic website:

The 2010 Perseids sky show reaches its peak Thursday night, with a moonless sky providing near-perfect observing conditions late Thursday into early Friday, astronomers say.

The Perseids should be most visible between 3 p.m. ET on August 12 and 2 a.m. ET on August 13. A very thin, waxing crescent moon will set about an hour after sunset, leaving behind a dark night sky for the Perseid meteors to shine. (Read about another sky show this week featuring a planetary triangle.)

Observers in Europe and North America should see the most meteors at the start of the peak, while in Asia the best show should be early Friday, according to Raminder Singh Samra, resident astronomer at the H.R. MacMillan Space Centre in Vancouver, British Columbia. (See asteroid and comet pictures.)

People in the Southern Hemisphere should be able to see the 2010 Perseids too, Samra said, but it won’t be as brilliant as up north.

—With reporting by Andrew Fazekas

This should already be visible now as the sun sets and will continue through the early morning hours.We should have a clear sky and a dim moon, perfect for viewing.

Here’s some more information on getting the best glimpse of the meteors, and if you want to learn a bit about the background to share with your kids as you watch, check out Space.com.