Listening practice: Why the Perseids Return Every August

In 2026, NASA says the Perseid meteor shower should peak from the evening of August twelfth into the early morning of August thirteenth. That date is useful, but the real story is bigger than one night. Every August, Earth moves through a stream of dust left along the path of a comet, and some of that dust becomes a brief line of light in our atmosphere. So why does the same shower return each year? And why can a dark sky make such a difference?