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An incredible meteor shower will light up Strasbourg's sky in August

undefined undefined 6 août 2026 undefined 19h00

The Editor

Image fictive générée avec l'IA

August 12th is shaping up to be one of the most beautiful celestial evenings of the year. A solar eclipse at sunset, followed a few hours later by the peak of the Perseids, summer's most famous meteor shower. Get ready to be absolutely mesmerized!

Get your eyes ready (and your wish list too). This year, the sky has cooked up an XXL program for us. On Wednesday, August 12th, a rare phenomenon will kick off the festivities: a solar eclipse will be visible at the end of the day, around 8 p.m. depending on where you're observing from. Then, once night falls, it's showtime for the grand Perseids spectacle, with peak activity expected during the night of August 12th to 13th. In other words? An absolutely exceptional evening and night of stargazing.


What are the Perseids?

Are shooting stars actually real stars? Not really. In fact, behind the Perseids hide tiny dust particles from an asteroid or comet, in this case comet 109P/Swift-Tuttle. Every summer, Earth passes through this cosmic swarm and these fragments burn up in our atmosphere at crazy speed, drawing long glowing trails

shining in the sky. At peak time, it will be possible to observe up to a hundred shooting stars per hour. Enough to blow through your annual wish quota ! 

And contrary to popular belief, they're not all white. Some shine bright blue, others in green, yellow, or even red. This festival of colors is explained by the unique chemical composition of each meteor, but also by the reactions triggered as they pass through Earth's atmosphere. The result: a truly magical spectacle

cute, free and frankly hard to beat.


Strasbourg Under the Stars

The best part of this story ? The astronomical calendar is perfectly aligned. The solar eclipse on August 12th also corresponds to a new Moon. Which means that once night falls, our satellite won't bathe the sky in its light. The darker the sky, the more visible the shooting stars are. So to enjoy the show, we skip the balconies or overly lit rooftops : light pollution is the number one enemy of the Perseids. It's better to treat yourself to a little nighttime outing in peaceful, green spaces, or even outside the city, in the heart of the countryside. The best time to look up ? The second half of the night, looking toward the north-northeast.