Shooting stars, northern lights and sea sparkle in Netherlands last night
Last night was an excellent night for natural phenomena. The Perseid meteor shower peaked, the Northern Lights were visible in several places in the Netherlands, and a few lucky souls even spotted Sea Sparkle. Some shooting stars and Northern Lights may appear in Dutch skies again tonight, but the weather is much less favorable for viewing, with thunderstorms entering the country this evening.
The Perseid meteor shower peaked during the early hours of Tuesday morning. The annual meteor shower is dust particles from the Swift-Tuttle comet burning up in the Earth’s atmosphere when the planet passes the comet once a year. Between 3:00 and 4:00 a.m., there were almost 60 shooting stars per hour.
While Tuesday morning was the peak of the meteor shower, shooting stars were also visible on Monday night, and there will be more on Wednesday night. But where the past two nights had clear skies and warm weather, the KNMI predicts thunderstorms and cloud cover for tonight.
People from across the Netherlands also posted photos of the Northern Lights last night, several catching a combination of aurora borealis and shooting stars. Weeronline received a single photo showing the rare combination of Northern Lights and Sea Sparkle - a bioluminescent algae that sometimes appears in the waves on warm spring and summer evenings.
