Leonid meteor shower 2010 - when to view, where you can glance

The Leonid meteor shower occurs each November and this year it gets to its highest frequency today and tomorrow. The best time to catch the Leonid meteor shower in the United States can be a couple of hrs before dawn on Thurs., November 18. If you are able to get up very early for the maximum of the Leonids, you’ll see up to 12 meteors per hour for about 2 hrs before dawn. The Leonid meteors lighting up the sky are really little dust particles left in the wake of Comet Tempel-Tuttle that vaporize right after striking the atmosphere at astronomical speed.

Leonids place and time

The Comet Tempel-Tuttle's trail of debris is something the earth is beginning to hit using the Leonid meteor shower 2010 hitting right before daybreak. You might like to glance around 3 a.m. That is when the sky is the darkest right after the moon has set. Try to find the constellation Leo in the southeast. The "radiant" is exactly what we call this point in the sky. Since it looks like the meteors are going out of the sky like water from a shower head, it was given this name.

Information on shooting stars

The Leonid meteor shower 2010 will take place due to comet debris rotating around the sun. It will go within the opposite direction of the Earth around the sun. They hit the atmosphere like a head-on highway collision at really high speeds–about forty-five miles per second. A rifle bullet is slow by comparison at a velocity of about 1,000 meters per second. Most of the meteors are about the size of a grain of sand. You will find bright streaks in the sky that stay a moment when the particles are vaporizing.

The conclusion of the planet

The frequency of the Leonids is proceeding being pretty low with a dozen per hour this year, possibly even though it is one of the better annual meteor showers. From 1999-2002 the Leonids lit up at about 1,000 per hour. The atmosphere had about 10,000 per hour vaporizing in 1996. In 1833, before individuals comprehended what meteors are, the Leonids fell like cosmic rain. Many thought the world was coming to an end as they would get woken up by the sky getting so bright with shooting stars.

Citations

Astronomy.com

astronomy.com/en/News-Observing/News/2010/11/Leonid%20meteor%20shower%202010.aspx

MSNBC

msnbc.msn.com/id/40033447/ns/technology_and_science-space/

Space.com

space.com/scienceastronomy/top10_leonidsfacts-6.html