Astronomers say tomorrow's Leonid Meteor Shower will be spectacular, if you're in Asia where about 300 meteors per hour are expected. For the U.S. they say the shower will be pretty but fairly tame with about 30-40 meteors streaking across the early morning sky.
The Leonids
are bits of debris from a comet called Tempel-Tuttle. Accroding to this NASA story, the comet visits the inner solar system every 33 years
and leaves a stream
of dusty debris in its wake.
Last year's Leonid shower will pretty good, and this year there's another exciting feature to see.
It’ll look like the Leonid “shooting stars” are coming out from the planet Mars that happens to be in the right place at the right time.
“This year, Mars happens is by the Leonid radiant at the
time of the shower. The Red Planet is almost twice as bright as a first
magnitude star, so it makes an eye-catching companion for the Leonids,”
explained NASA’s Dr. Tony Phillips.
The moon is in its new phase so there won’t be any light to compete with, unless you live in a city where the lights make meteors difficult to see. Around 1:00 a.m. look toward the constellation Leo in the eastern sky for the best view.
