Perseid meteor shower tonight: It's a spectacular troublemaker

The Perseid meteor shower tonight, which peaks during the early hours of Friday morning, is widely regarded as perhaps the most consistently spectacular meteor shower of the year. But it also is the only meteor shower known to have killed a satellite and delayed a space-shuttle launch. And as recently as last year, it may have knocked the Landsat 5 Earth-observing satellite off its rocker temporarily. Enter Bill Cooke, who heads the National Aeronautics and Space Administration's Meteoroid Environment Office at the Marshall Space Flight Center in Huntsville, Ala. His small shop is the meteor-shower equivalent to the National Hurricane Center in Miami. More

(Source: Christian Science Monitor - Aug 13)