by bintangkecil on Saturday, November 14th, 2009 | News, World | No Comments

The 2009’s Leonid Meteor shower is expected to peak on Tuesday, November 17th. The shower is expected to be small, but should produce a sprinkling of meteors over the United States. Because the moon will also be in the new phase, this could be the best Leonid shower in several years.

Leonids are bits of debris from Comet Tempel-Tuttle. Every 33 years the comet visits the inner solar system and leaves a stream of dusty debris in its wake. Many of these streams have drifted across the November portion of Earth’s orbit.

“We’re predicting 20 to 30 meteors per hour over the Americas, and as many as 200 to 300 per hour over Asia,” says Bill Cooke of NASA’s Meteoroid Environment Office.

The first stream is expected to be seen at about 4 am Eastern Time, 1 am Pacific Time.

Region of visibility of the 2009 Leonid outburst:

“A remarkable feature of this year’s shower is that Leonids will appear to be shooting almost directly out of the planet Mars,” says Cooke.

Along with the moon being in the new phase, Mars also happens to be passing by the Leonid radiant at the same time of the shower, making this shower especially visually appealing.

The next stream crossing straddles the hour 2100-2200 UT, shortly before dawn in Indonesia and China. At that time, Earth will pass through a pair of streams laid down by Comet Tempel-Tuttle in 1466 and 1533 AD. The double crossing could yield as many as 300 Leonids per hour.

“Even if rates are only half that number, it would still be one of the best showers of the year,” says Cooke.

Make sure you don’t miss it!

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