Perseid Meteor Shower

Perseid Meteor Shower

(Unfortunately this time this is not my own image and was taken from the National Geographic website.)

Sometimes we forget how wonderful our world can be when we are suffocated with the bad news we hear from social network sites, papers and TV. It’s sometimes that the good things in life get pushed aside however one thing that I didn’t let slip by was the meteor showers the other nights. Thanks to a tweet I saw, I was made aware of the fact there was a peak of the phenomenon named the Perseid Meteor Shower. This is when Earth collides with a swarm of comet debris which can be seen all over the world - pretty magnificent if you ask me? They create a trail of light as they disintegrate into the atmosphere, something I didn’t want to miss out on the chance of seeing. Set aside the tiredness from a pretty busy weekend, I put my alarm for 3am and woke up, pulled open my curtains to a relatively clear night and stared up into the dark sky. I watched and waited and it wasn’t long before I spotted one. It shot across the sky, in between stars and was gone in less than a second. If you blinked you’d have missed it. However my tiredness soon got the best of me and I crawled back into bed, disappointed in myself.  

The next morning I woke up and spent pretty much most of it geeking out, researching into the meteor shower. I found that it was going to be even clearer that night and were going to be most visible from eleven and last until the early hours. So I knew my plan for the evening! A friend and I drove to several places. After being scared off of a couple of places because of how dark it was and being stared at by a badger, we eventually found a field round the back of Rayleigh which we ended up sitting in until nearly three. Even though we were both shivering, (both regretting not wearing more clothes or bringing a blanket), what we saw was pretty spectacular and you should be gutted if you missed it.

I have never really sat and done anything like that so for me it was something new. We must have seen around fifty between us and each time I got as excited as the last. I barely got a word out, just a mere screech of excitement as they were too quick and as soon as you saw them they’d disappear. Some were tiny, some were big, some were bright and some were just about visible. There was one in particular which stood out as the trail it left behind lasted longer in the sky then the others. If you’re lucky enough to have seen a shooting star before then it was that, but a hundred times better. They say you are supposed to wish upon them but to be honest I didn’t even have time to think - they’d disappear quicker then they appeared.

It all got me thinking how beautiful space must be and how from down here it looks so different from what it’s like up there. Well, evidently but it got me thinking about all the other planets that exist and whether there really is life like we have. I guess one day we may actually find life like that on Earth, life-forms that have taught themselves to do things like we have. If you really think about it, how insane is it that we have evolved to what we are? We have evolved from a time with dinosaurs, changed from wearing just a cloth to the absolute diversity of fashion we have now and advanced from simplistic messengers and horses and carts, to online messaging and cars that even have automatic parking! I sometimes wish I lived in a time where these weren’t around and wonder how different it would be. Things are changing so quickly that a space of twenty years has a great enough impact on lifestyles. I think sometimes we get carried away with the luxuries that are both obtainable and unobtainable. We are fixated on always wanting more and never truly being satisfied with what is laid in front of us. Our world is beautiful in itself without the need for all the artificial amenities. I was happy just sitting in a field watching nature do its thing. I’m a big nature person; I love just seeing something I’ve never seen before, sitting somewhere and observing a natural landscape. They are the little things that make me excited and they could have the same effect on you.

Laura May