Metor Shower, Nov. 18th & 19th

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Leonids set to light up night sky

By Richard Stenger

CNN

Monday, November 18, 2002 Posted: 4:11 PM EST (2111 GMT)

 

(CNN) -- One of the most celebrated meteor showers will peak early Tuesday over Europe and North America, sending hundreds or thousands of fireballs streaking through the atmosphere each hour.

 

Yet the Leonids will likely not match the spectacular 2001 display, one of the best in decades, if only because another celestial object hogs the nighttime spotlight.

 

The annual meteor shower takes place every November when the Earth passes through a debris trail left by Comet Tempel-Tuttle, which sheds material as it swings near the sun every 33 years.

 

The tiny fragments, often no bigger than sand grains, heat up and vaporize as they bounce across the upper atmosphere at speeds of about 160,000 mph (260,000 km/h).

 

The streaking particles produce intense flashes of light, sometimes brighter than Venus or the moon. The Leonids in particular are known for their exceptional brightness and endurance before disappearing.

 

The meteor concentration varies sporadically from year to year, depending on whether the Earth smacks into sparse or thick bands of Leonid debris.

 

This year, our planet plows through two comet swarms, providing peak periods some six hours apart overnight between November 18 and 19.

 

The first cloud will spark a flurry of meteors that peaks over Europe around 4 a.m. GMT Tuesday (11 p.m. ET Monday), according to NASA.

 

"We expect sky watchers in the countryside, away from city lights, to see between 500 and 1,000 Leonids per hour," said NASA's Bill Cooke, who helped calculate the meteor predictions.

 

Later, our planet smacks into a second, thicker cloud about 5:30 a.m. ET.

 

"Observers here in the United States could see as many as 2,000 per hour," Cooke said in a statement.

 

During the 2001 light show, sky watchers in some places saw up to 10,000 meteors an hour. It was the heaviest concentration of Leonids since 1966, when there were an estimated 150,000 shooting stars an hour during peak times.

 

Unlike the 2001 show, the 2002 edition will feature an unwelcome guest, the full moon, which is expected to wash out many fainter meteors.

 

"Moonlight will reduce the number of Leonids seen," said Cooke. "We took this into account when we calculated our forecasts."

 

There is a dark ray of hope for North Americans on the East Coast since the meteor peak occurs right before dawn for them.

 

"That's good because at that time of night, the moon will be low in the Western sky. Try to find a dark observing site where the moon sets early behind tall buildings or surrounding hills," suggested Rob Suggs, another researcher at NASA's Marshall Space Flight Center in Huntsville, Alabama.

 

The Leonids, so named because they seem to originate from the constellation Leo, will drizzle over other parts of the world, but with no more than several dozen bright shooting stars per hour, NASA scientists estimate.

 

If you can't watch during the peak hours, anytime between midnight and sunrise on November 19 should be a good time to watch. The nights before and after the apex can also offer enjoyable viewing.

 

Astronomers suggest that meteor hunters bundle up, find a spot as far from artificial light pollution as possible, and look to the northwest or southwest away from the glare of the moon.