The Perseid meteor outburst did not disappoint! Look for more meteors tonight

Sky watchers agree: It was totally worth staying up all night to watch the 2016 Perseid meteor outburst.

NASA officials counted up to 170 meteors per hour at the peak of the outburst early Friday morning.

“Our meteor cameras saw over 160 Perseids brighter than planet Jupiter,� said Bill Cooke, head of NASA’s Meteoroid Environment Office.

At the Cottonwood Spring Campground in Joshua Tree National Park, temperatures were still hovering above 90 at 8 p.m., but that didn’t stop avid sky watchers — like us — from stretching out beneath the stars to enjoy the show.

1/8

Meteors traverse the night sky under stars that appear to rotate above Corfe Castle in the United Kingdom on Friday. The Perseid meteor shower occurs every year when the Earth passes through the cloud of debris left by Comet Swift-Tuttle.

  (Dan Kitwood / Getty Images)

2/8

A meteor can be seen in the night sky during the Perseid meteor shower in Jankowo, Poland, on Thursday.

  (Lukasz Ogrodowczyk / EPA)

3/8

A Perseid meteor streaks across the sky above Inspiration Point early Friday in Bryce Canyon National Park in Utah.

  (Ethan Miller / Getty Images)

4/8

In this long exposure photo, a streak appears in the sky above a stone cross during the annual Perseid meteor shower at the Guadarrama mountains, near Madrid, in the early hours of Friday.

  (Francisco Seco / Associated Press)

5/8

A Perseid meteor streaks the sky above Marganell, in Catalonia, northeast Spain.

  (Marta Perez / EPA)

6/8

A Perseid meteor shoots across the sky behind a wind turbine near Kavarna, Bulgaria.

  (Vassil Donev / EPA)

7/8

A Perseid meteor can be seen above San Miguel de Aguayo village, in Cantabria, northwest Spain.

  (Pedro Puente Hoyos / EPA)

8/8

A Perseid meteor streaks across the sky above trees Friday in the central Israeli village of Luzit.

  (Menahem Kahana / AFP/Getty Images)

Within minutes of our arrival, we caught a huge shooting star as it gracefully arced across the night sky. It was a spectacular beginning to a night that just kept getting better.

As the evening went on, sporadic shouts of “Whoa!� and “Did you see that one?� could be heard throughout the campground as the Perseids put on a dazzling display.

There were short little zippy ones, bright fireballs that looked like rockets, and some that traced long, elegant trails through the night.

See the most-read stories in Science this hour >>

Even during a lull in the action, there was still a lot to see. The Cottonwood Spring Campground has one of the darkest skies within 160 miles of Los Angeles, and even on a night with a half-full moon, the Milky Way was visible stretching across the star-strewn sky.

If you weren’t able to get out of town to watch the outburst, don’t despair. Cooke said the show will continue at least through the early hours of Saturday morning.

“There should be plenty of Perseids for folks to see tonight if they have clear skies,� he said. “Not as many as last night, but it should still be a decent show.�

Do you love science? We do! Follow us at @mdaley_ and @DeborahNetburn and “like� Los Angeles Times Science & Health on Facebook.

MORE FROM SCIENCE

Watch sunflowers dance under the sun (Seriously)

A 400-year-old shark? Greenland shark could be Earth’s longest-lived vertebrate

Did the earliest Americans pass through ice or cross over water? New study fuels debate