If you recall from last week, were in the midst of the Northern Taurids Meteor Shower. It started on Oct. 20 and goes until Dec. 10. It peaked on Nov. 11. However, there’s another meteor shower going on and it will peak on the night of Nov. 16 and the morning of Nov. 17, according to SeaSky.org. It’s the Leonids Meteor Shower. It started on Nov. 6 and goes until the end of the month. This shower is unique in that it has a cyclonic peak about every 33 years where hundreds of meteors per hour can be seen. That last of these occurred in 2001. The crescent moon will set early in the evening leaving dark skies for what should be an excellent show.
This shower will radiate from the Leo constellation. According to In-The-Sky.org, the shower will not be visible before 11:10 p.m. each night, when its radiant point rises above the eastern horizon. It will then remain active until dawn breaks, around 6:22 a.m. The shower is expected to reach peak activity at around 4 a.m. on Nov. 17. At its peak, the shower is expected to produce a nominal rate of around 15 meteors per hour.
Meteor showers are created when our planet travels though clouds of particles left by asteroids or comets. The Leonids is produced by as comet 55P/Tempel-Tuttle, which was discovered in 1865. The next good meteor shower is the Geminids, which will peak Dec. 13.
On Nov. 19, look for Jupiter and Saturn to have close approaches to the moon.
Look Up appears in the weekend edition. If you have any astronomical questions or facts you’d like to share email news@smdailyjournal.com with the subject line “Look Up.”
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Keep the discussion civilized. Absolutely NO personal attacks or insults directed toward writers, nor others who make comments.
Keep it clean. Please avoid obscene, vulgar, lewd, racist or sexually-oriented language.
Don't threaten. Threats of harming another person will not be tolerated.
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Be proactive. Use the 'Report' link on each comment to let us know of abusive posts.
PLEASE TURN OFF YOUR CAPS LOCK.
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