The Leonid meteor shower peaks on Tuesday, November 17. This year, coincidentally, the Moon will be in its new phase, setting the stage for what could be one of the best Leonid showers in recent years. Earth will pass through one of the denser debris streams at around 4 a.m. EST (1 a.m. PST) Tuesday. If you have only an hour or less to watch, center it around this time. Leo will be high in the sky for East Coast meteor shower watchers, putting more meteors into view.
"We're predicting 20 to 30 meteors per hour over the Americas, and as many as 200 to 300 per hour over Asia," said Bill Cooke of NASA's Meteoroid Environment Office.
The Leonids are a result of the comet Swift-Tuttle, which passes through the inner solar system every 33 years on its orbit around the sun. Each time the comet make s a pass, it leaves a new river of debris made up of bits of ice and rock no bigger than a sand grain but a few the size of a marble.
"We can predict when Earth will cross a debris stream with pretty good accuracy," Cooke said. "The intensity of the display is less certain, though, because we don't know how much debris is in each stream."
When the Earth plows into the debris, the bits hit the atmosphere and vaporize, creating sometimes dramatic streaks of light and the occasional fireball with a smoky-looking trail that can remain visible for several minutes.
The Leonid stream is moving in the opposite direction of Earth, producing impact speeds of 160,000 mph (72 kilometers per second) – higher than many other meteors.
Top Ten Leonid Meteor Shower Facts
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I live up in northern Minnesota, there is little light pollution here and every year I have had an amazing view of the leonids showers! I decided to setup a couple cameras with live feeds to share my view with others. If you’re interested you can check it out at my website here: www.tinyurl.com/watch-leonid-meteor-live
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