The annual Perseid meteor shower is known as the 'fireball champion' of meteor showers.



Google has marked the arrival of one of the great celestial displays, the Perseid Meteor Shower, with an animated Doodle on its homepage.
The Doodle when clicked shows a short film of meteors dashing through the night sky against a variety of backdrops.

The annual Perseid meteor shower - known as the 'fireball champion' of meteor showers - happens every August and is caused by the massive Swift-Tuttle comet losing parts of its celestial body as it enters the inner solar system.

The Perseid shower is so-called because they appear to come from the radiant which lies in the constellation Perseus.

Observation of the spectacle is ancient, with the earliest information on this meteor shower found in Chinese annals in A.D. 36.

The meteor shower is often referred to, particularly by Catholics as the 'tears of St. Lawrence', as 10 August is the date of that saint's martyrdom.

Given a dark, clear sky it is often common to see more than 100 of the meteors an hour during the second week in August.

This year the famous meteor shower was accompanied by the lunar phenomenon of a supermoon.

The moon appeared 14% bigger and 30% brighter than normal as it reached the point in its orbit closest to the Earth, known as 'perigee&q.