A Perseid meteor streaks through cloudy skies above Kingston, Ont., early in the morning of Aug. 12, 2024, during the annual meteor shower. Elliot Ferguson/Postmedia

Article content

Raging grains of cosmic dust will streak across Calgary’s sky on Tuesday and Wednesday night, but wildfire smoke from B.C. and cloudy weather will mask the celestial dance.

Article content

Roland Dechesne and his fellow astrophiles thought 2026 would be the ideal year to watch the Perseid meteor shower, an annual phenomenon in which debris from a comet plunges into the Earth’s atmosphere at a speed so high that it burns up to create a stunning display of shooting stars, thanks to a perfectly timed new moon.

Article content

Article content

Article content

“Much like you would imagine driving up and down the highway with your car, and you get a bunch of bugs on your front windshield,” said Dechesne, a volunteer at the Royal Astronomical Society of Canada’s Calgary Centre.

Article content

Article content

However, smoke from devastating wildfires in B.C. is set to roll in on Tuesday evening and shroud the sky in a thick veil, said Chloe Katsademas, operational meteorologist at Environment Canada.

Article content

“The air quality index has already kind of started to tick up a little bit,” Katsademas said. “The flow of wildfire smoke is starting to come across the Rockies into southern Alberta.”

Article content

The smoke, she said, would clear by tomorrow afternoon. However, the sky would remain cloudy. Cold air from the north is pushing into warmer winds in southern Alberta and creating instability that, combined with moisture in the atmosphere, results in stormy weather.

Article content

“Warm, wet air is rising and then cooling and condensing and creating the conditions for thunderstorms,” she said.

Article content

All that is to say, the conditions aren’t really ideal anymore.

Article content

“That’s going to really depress the ability to see the fainter meteors, because there are many more faint ones than there are bright ones,” Dechesne said.

Article content

Article content

Part of the problem, he said, is that the fireballs are the size of sand grains. “It’s just because they’re travelling at these tens of kilometres per second that they have a lot of energy. So when they impact the Earth’s atmosphere, they burn up, and we see that as a flash of light called a meteor.”

Article content

Article content

However, Duchesne suspects the Perseid meteor shower, known for its bright displays, might be visible through the blanket of smoke and clouds.

Article content

A meteor can appear anywhere in the sky, but Duchesne suggested travelling north of Calgary. “You might want to avoid looking over the light dome of the city of Calgary by heading maybe east or northeast or north,” he said.

Article content

“But if you travel south, it’s not a problem if you travel far enough south.” Some suggest Big Hill Springs as a place to watch the meteors.

Article content

“If you go out to the countryside, just be mindful of private property,” Duchesne said. “Also, don’t just stop in the middle of country roads because people might not see you.”

Article content

Article content

Catch up with the day’s headlines, curated by our editors and delivered to your email inbox at lunchtime on every business day. Sign up now for the Calgary Herald Noon News Roundup.

Article content