Photograph Shows How the Perseid Meteor Shower Looked Like Around the Globe

Students at the Florida Institute of Technology created a time-lapse image showing how the Perseid meteor shower looked like around the world.

The images were released by Florida Tech's SkySentinel project, a program in which students survey the night sky through a network of up-looking, wide-angled cameras around the world.

The images capture the recent astronomical phenomenon as seen from 58 SkySentinel Allsky camera points around the world. SkySentinel Allsky cameras are located in the United States and Canada, with some located in other countries including India, Taiwan, Mexico and Brazil. According to a news release by Florida Tech, the cameras collect data 24/7, and are capable of playing back past events over previous weeks or months. Allsky data are currently being maintained at the SkySentinel server at Florida Tech's Geospace Physics Lab.

The SkySentinel Allsky cameras were created by Sandia National Laboratories for the purpose of monitoring, tracking and analyzing meteor showers and other Transient Luminous Events (TLEs), such as high-atmospheric lighting called sprites and jets. The data collected by the cameras are made available to scientists conducting observations or studies.

This year's Perseid meteor shower, which extended from July to August, peaked on Aug. 11 and 12. The meteor shower was said to be the most "spectacular" because the number of meteors doubled to 150 to 200 per hour.

The Perseid meteor shower occurs when the Earth passes through the debris of the Comet Swift-Tuttle, causing the rocks to streak across the Earth's atmosphere. Aside from the comet debris, the gravitational pull from Jupiter also enhanced the cosmic spectacle.