As we are current;y in the thralls of the Persieds I was curious about something. Do meteors constantly fall to earth? and if they do does a meteor shower technically last for 2 days straight? If the sun was gone could they be seen? last night(this morning) I was told "showtime" was 1:30. Why? why do meteors only fall for 4 or 5 hours, go away and come back the next night? Someone must know the answer. Please don't tell me to google it, i'd rather just ask.
I think they call it showtime because the moon goes back down and you can see the stars much more clearly. Couple nights ago I saw 3 shooting stars in like 5 seconds. I'm positive there's a shower on the 17th.
Yes meteors constantly fall to Earth. A shooting star is a meteor. My guess would be a meteor shower can last as long as there are meteors. Yes they could still be seen because it's Earth's atmosphere that "burns" the meteor. If we had no atmosphere then you probably couldn't see them. Showtime is 1:30 probably because it's the time with the highest concentration of meteors with good viewing.
Saw a really bright one not too long ago. And as Cali said, meteors fall to Earth everyday. Most of the time we don't notice it. Most are smaller than a grain of sand. with the exception of this one (yes there are discrepancies of certain details but she still got hit) http://www.xenophilia.com/zb0005.htm