dipper@utastro.UUCP (Debbie Byrd) (11/15/84)
Saturday morning is the peak of the famous Leonid meteor shower. More on why this shower is best every 33 years -- right after this. November 15 Meteors Saturday Morning Saturday morning, in the hours between midnight and dawn, people in the country may glimpse some shooting stars -- or meteors -- despite the light of the last quarter moon. The Leonid meteor shower peaks Saturday morning -- at a time which would normally be very favorable for North American observers. It's too bad the moon will be around, too -- but, even with the moon in the sky, some especially bright meteors may be visible streaking across the sky between the hours of midnight and dawn Saturday morning. Meteors are bits of debris left behind in the orbits of comets. They encounter our atmosphere and vaporize -- to be visible as shooting stars. The Leonid meteors come from Comet Tempel-Tuttle, which takes about 33 years to complete one orbit around the sun. The comet's orbital period is a key to the spectacular nature of this meteor shower -- which becomes a true meteor storm every 33 years. The last storm of Leonid meteors took place on November 16, 1966. Then observers in western North America saw more than one hundred meteors per second! Some meteor showers are more regular -- the debris that spawns them is more evenly spread around in the orbit of their parent comet. But the Leonid meteors appear to follow in a great swarm just behind Comet Tempel-Tuttle -- so the greatest Leonid showers take place just after the comet has passed through our vicinity of space. That's due to happen next in the year 1999. Meanwhile, tune in tomorrow -- for more on this year's Leonid meteor shower. Script by Deborah Byrd. (c) Copyright 1983, 1984 McDonald Observatory, University of Texas at Austin