Watch Leonid Meteor Shower Tonight

Watch Leonid Meteor Shower Tonight

A “prolific” Leonid meteor shower is expected to light up the skies of Asia and Europe tonight. This meteor shower can be viewed from November 13-20, 2009 but the peak will be early tomorrow morning, November 17, 2009. The most activity will occur and best hours to view the Leonid Meteor Shower will be after 1:30 am EST and before sunrise.

The moon (new moon phase during the phase) will not be visible from the Earth so the meteor will be easy to view than ever before. According to NASA, every hour 20-30 meteors should be visible during the peak time (1:30 am EST until dawn).

People in United States of America can view 20-30 meteors per hour according to the sources of NASA while the Asians would be able to view 200-300 meteors per hour. Other astronomers are also predicting that the shower can be as high as 500 meteors an hour during its peak.

Mother Earth will be on a flight path through the fragments of meteoric dust from originating the constellation Leo. Since the smaller fragments are understood to be pushed away by the larger ones, one can expect to witness a shooting star with a longer than average trail that could burst into a fireball called bolides. The Leonids are a prolific meteor shower associated with the comet Tempel-Tuttle.

NASA

Set your alarm to watch this once-in-a-year prolific Leonid Meteor Shower Tonight!