The meteor shower peaks Leonid 2018 this weekend! Here is what to expect

Arrived early Sunday morning (November 18), the famous meteor shower Leonid will reach its peak. Fewer numbers are expected the previous and next mornings.

According to Margaret Campbell-Brown and Peter Brown in the 2018 Observatory Manual of the Royal Astronomical Society of Canada, the Earth will pass at 7 pm in the thickest part of Leonids' swarm . November 17 (EST). The best time to watch will be after midnight on Sunday morning, once the source from where the meteors seem to come from, called the radiant, passes over the horizon for northern observers. America. The meteors seem to fly from a point in Leo's sickle (hence the name "Leonids").

In fact, the best time to observe the Leonids is to get up as soon as possible. It is at this point that viewers will be able to avoid the glare of a thorny and gibbous moon (which sets before 2 am local time) and that the radiant will rise in the southern sky -is. [Leonid Meteor Shower: When, Where & How to See It]

Under ideal dark sky conditions, only one observer can expect to see about 10 to 15 of these ultra-fast meteors every hour. They enter our upper atmosphere at a speed of 72 km per second, faster than any other meteorite rain. As such, half of them leave visible traces and from time to time you can be treated with an extremely bright meteor (called "fireball") or a meteor that explodes silently in a strobe flash along its path (called "bolide"). These meteors become so bright that they can project distinct shadows.

Observation Tips

As the mornings of November tend to be quite cool, bordering on absolute cold, the best suggestion is to be sure. The best equipment for observing meteors is a long lounge chair where you can lie down and look up without stressing your neck. Look in the sky, keep your eyes moving and do not look elsewhere. Soon you will see a trail in the sky; mentally trace the trail back. When another trail passes, trace it too and see if it came from the same area of ​​the sky as the first one.

By the time a third sequence appears, you should be able to verify that the point of emanation is well within the sickle, a retrograde star-shaped pattern that marks Lion's head and mane, Lion.

The past

What most people remember about the Leonids are the spectacular meteor displays they put up from 1998 to 2002. In some cases, the meteors dropped to rates of up to 3000 per hour! The cause of these astonishing demonstrations is the Earth's interaction with dense dust layers trailing behind the Comet 55P / Tempel-Tuttle, which throws dusty comet debris into space every time it passes the sun all around. around 33 years old. The comet reached the end of its orbit, called Aphelion, in 2014, so the Leonids have been weak in recent years.

L & # 39; s future

Unfortunately, on its way to the sun, the comet will pass near Jupiter, whose strong gravitational field will substantially disturb its orbit and dense dust trails. Thus, meteor "storms" should not occur in the next Leonid cycle. Nevertheless, there is a chance of a significant activity. The Russian meteorologist Mikhail Maslov predicted that on November 19, the dust tracks left by the comet in 1699 and 1866 will overlap partially during their interaction with the Earth, possibly producing meteoric levels of up to several hundreds of hours. Not a meteor "storm", but still potentially a very impressive display.

Mark your calendars!

Editor's note: If you take an amazing photo of Leonid meteor that you would like to share with Space.com and our press partners for a possible story or photo gallery, send your photos to our team at [email protected].

Joe Rao is an instructor and guest speaker at the Hayden Planetarium in New York. He writes on astronomy for Natural History magazine, The Farmers' Almanac and other publications. He is also a weather forecaster for Verizon FiOS1 News in the Lower Hudson Valley in New York. Follow us on twitter @Spacedotcom and on Facebook. Original article on Space.com.