Results tagged “National Geographic News” from Intelligent Travel Blog

Meteors brighten the night sky over a Bedouin tent near Amman, Jordan, on August 12, 2004.

You may have noticed that Google has a special logo on its homepage today: it's to highlight the annual Perseid meteor shower, which peaks tonight. If you click on the logo, the first result will be this National Geographic News report on the Perseids: what they are, how to watch the meteors, and more.

What's the big deal?

In the Northern Hemisphere, this summer's Perseids may be the best meteor-watching event of the year.

Why is it called the Perseids? 

Each year, Earth passes through the debris of Comet Swift-Tuttle. The meteoroids get incinerated in our atmosphere, and the heated air makes the showy streaks we see as meteors, or shooting stars. Because Swift-Tuttle's shooting stars appear to streak outward from a point near the constellation Perseus, we call them the Perseids.

When to watch?

The best viewing hours should be whenever skies are clear and whenever the moon isn't present. For example, the U.S. East Coast should have moonless skies between about 10:45 p.m. and 1 a.m. (check your local moonrise and moonset times). Look for the shooting stars to streak out from the northeast to points across the sky, especially at and after midnight (see animated diagram above).

For a gallery of Perseids of the past, check out this gallery at NG News. And test your knowledge of star science with our Perseids quiz, here.

Photograph by Ali Jarekji, Reuters

The UNESCO World Heritage Committee added 13 new sites to its World Heritage List last week, bringing the total of protected sites to 890 properties. The list, which encourages countries to preserve important cultural locations, now includes two additional Natural Heritage sites and 11 Cultural Heritage sites, including the Pontcysyllte Aqueduct in Wales (above). 

The National Trust for Historic Preservation released its 2009 list of the most endangered historic sites in the America yesterday, and it's a delicate mix of architectural and historical treasures. Some sites have been damaged by hurricanes, others are threatened by developers who seek to tear them down. But all of them have a role in the American experience, from a building which first served as a schoolhouse for freed slaves, to the hangar for the Enola Gay, to Lana'i City, the Dole company town in Hawaii with it's fruit-hued plantation homes. Check out National Geographic News for a slideshow of the sites and read through the complete list, as released by the Trust, after the jump.

Have you visited these sites? Do you think they should be perserved? Let us know in the comments.