MICHEL MARTIN, HOST:
Today, the sun, the moon and debris from a comet will put on a stunning double feature. It starts with a solar eclipse this afternoon Eastern time that will sweep from Greenland to Spain.
DAVID BARON: Before you die, you owe it to yourself to experience a total solar eclipse.
LEILA FADEL, HOST:
Science writer and eclipse chaser David Baron is on a ship in the fjords of eastern Greenland. He's in the path of totality where observers will watch the moon block out the sun entirely to see the solar corona.
BARON: And it's just the most glorious sight in the heavens. It looks like a halo or a kind of a finely woven wreath made of silk that surrounds the sun.
MARTIN: This is Baron's tenth eclipse and his first above the Arctic Circle. He says it's like being transported to another planet.
BARON: You're looking at the sun, and you can see the planets as well. It's like a sunset on the horizon all around you, 360 degrees, while it's twilight overhead.
FADEL: If a jaunt to Greenland or Spain isn't in the cards, the Perseid meteor shower will be visible tonight in the U.S.
JACKIE FAHERTY: This is hands down - not a lot of debate about it - the best meteor shower of the year.
MARTIN: That's astrophysicist Jackie Faherty of the Museum of Natural History in New York City. The Perseid shower appears when the Earth's atmosphere encounters the icy debris in the path of the Swift-Tuttle comet. It creates brilliant shooting stars.
FAHERTY: It's also a pretty dense amount of material that we're passing through, so it has a high return on excitement. You can get up to 90 per hour if you're in the darkest possible sky.
FADEL: This year, the meteor shower's peak coincides with an extra dark sky because of the new moon.
FAHERTY: You go through the entire night, and you don't have to worry about the moon at all. So as best conditions as you can ask for.
FADEL: Among Faherty's tips for watching the Perseids - move away from artificial light, find some open sky, let your eyes adjust to the darkness and wait.
FAHERTY: There can be 10, 20, 30 minutes, 45 minutes where you won't see anything, and then pow, it'll get you. You'll see one. And it could be one that's so spectacular, it'll blow your mind.
MARTIN: She says even big city residents can look up to see some of the magic in the skies. Nature's fireworks. Don't miss it.
(SOUNDBITE OF PHIL COLLINS SONG, "IN THE AIR TONIGHT") Transcript provided by NPR, Copyright NPR.
NPR transcripts are created on a rush deadline by an NPR contractor. This text may not be in its final form and may be updated or revised in the future. Accuracy and availability may vary. The authoritative record of NPR’s programming is the audio record.
