From Google News

The Comet Swift-Tuttle, which creates one of the world's most famous meteor showers, last passed near the Earth in 1992, and is expected to be seen again in 2125.

Heather Couper, former president of the British Astronomical Association, told BBC Radio 4's Today programme: "The meteors are debris from a comet called Comet Swift-Tuttle, which was discovered by two astronomers called Lewis Swift and Horace Tuttle in 1862

"A comet is basically a kind of leaking icy wheelbarrow of stuff. It drops debris when it comes close to the sun and it leaves a trail of debris and every August we go though this particular trail."

The astronomer, who said she was inspired to take up the profession when she saw a green shooting star as a child, added: "These are little particulars of dusty stuff that come off comets, dust and debris that are basically the building blocks of our solar system."

This meteor shower, first recorded in 36AD, gets the name "Perseids" because it appears to radiate from the constellation Perseus.