The Leonid Meteor Shower Is Peaking—Here’s How to Watch This Fireball-Filled Event

The Leonid Meteor Shower Is Peaking—Here’s How to Watch This Fireball-Filled Event

By Humberto Basilio edited by Claire Cameron

The Leonid meteor bathe is peaking this week, probably bringing lots of of long-tailed meteors with it. This annual fall show is a superb alternative to identify fireballs within the evening sky.

Meteor showers are the attractive results of Earth transferring by the path of particles streaming from comets and asteroids as they make their very own manner across the solar. As these chunks of house rock enter our environment, they fritter away as capturing stars. And in the event that they land, they change into meteorites.

The Leonids are an annual bathe that happens in early November and lasts by early December, when Earth passes by the stream of particles of Comet 55P/Tempel-Tuttle.

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Perhaps essentially the most well-known Leonid show in fashionable reminiscence passed off on November 17, 1966, when meteors appeared to fall like rain and a few witnesses stated it felt as if Earth was plunging by house.

These storms are likely to observe a 33- to 34-year rhythm tied to the comet’s orbit. Most years are quieter, nonetheless, which is the almost definitely final result this week. The final main occasion occurred in 2002.

How to Watch the Leonids

The Leonids will attain their peak at 1 P.M. EST on November 17. Hundreds of long-tailed meteors will cross the sky at 44 miles per second, giving sky watchers a superb likelihood to catch the show nearer to daybreak on November 18.

When many meteors seem to streak from the identical level within the evening sky, that time is named the radiant. This 12 months the bathe’s radiant rises round midnight and climbs highest simply earlier than daybreak, making the predawn hours the most effective time to look at.

Favorably for sky-gazers, the following new moon will arrive on November 20, which suggests there’s solely a skinny waning crescent within the sky in the course of the Leonids’ peak this week. Under darkish sky circumstances, observers may see as many as 10 to fifteen Leonids per hour. Experts recommend utilizing binoculars or telescopes and mendacity flat in your again together with your toes towards the east. After about half-hour at the hours of darkness, your eyes will alter, and you’ll start to see meteors.

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