Leonids Meteor Shower

Subject – Science and Tech

Context – The annual Leonids Meteor Shower has begun

Concept –

The annual Leonids Meteor Shower has begun. The peak time of a meteor shower comes when the Earth passes through the densest part of the debris.
The debris that forms this meteor shower originates from a small comet called 55P/Tempel-Tuttle in the constellation Leo, which takes 33 years to orbit the sun.
The Leonids are considered to be a major shower that features the fastest meteors, which typically travel at speeds of 71 km per second, although the rates are often as low as 15 meteors per hour, NASA notes.
The Leonids are also called fireballs and earthgazer meteors.
- Fireballs, because of their bright colours, and earthgazer, because they streak close to the horizon.
The light—which is why a meteor is called a shooting star — is a result of the friction between the meteorite and the molecules present in the Earth’s atmosphere because of which it burns.
Every 33 years, a Leonid shower turns into a meteor storm, which is when hundreds to thousands of meteors can be seen every hour.
- A meteor storm should have at least 1,000 meteors per hour.
- The last such storm took place in2002.
The showers are visible on any cloudless night when the Moon is not very bright. Ideally, the viewing location should have no light pollution; the farther away from cities the better.
- According to the website Earth Sky, city, state and national parks are often great places to watch meteor showers.