Perseid Meteor Shower

The annual meteor shower is the resulting debris from the comet Swift-Tuttle.  Comet Swift-Tuttle was last seen in 1992 and before that it was last seen in 1862 by Swift and Tuttle.  A comet is a small body composed of ice, dust and rock that orbits elliptically around our Sun.  As a comet comes close to our Sun, it heats up and begins to melt the ice away which causes a tail to form which will always point away from the Sun and will even lead the comet as it reaches certain points around the Sun.  When all the ice and dust is melt away the remaining rock from the comet become an asteroid.  Asteroids also orbit our Sun and are smaller than a planet and are sometimes called minor planets (like poor demoted Pluto).  Sometimes asteroids collide and when they do they shoot out particles of dust, rock, and rubble. The rubble is what we call meteoroids or more commonly, falling stars or shooting stars.  This is what the Perseid Meteor shower is.  It is the debris from the comet Swift-Tuttle.