Leonid Meteor Shower Expected Nov 17, 2009

Our planet earth will once again experience the breath taking showers of a meteoroid on this November 17th. This event is also known as Leonid meteor shower, which in 1999 and 2001 put on some dramatic sky shows and this event not only happens in one particular place but through out the world. This time the showers will be more in number and much denser than before. These showers were predicted earlier by the astronomers who believed that these showers would take place in somewhere of mid November and according to some forecasters, they define this meteor storm as 1000 or more meteors per hour. When showers exceed 1,000 meteors per hour, they are called storms. This one is not expected to reach that level. That would make the 2009 Leonids “a half-storm”.

The gritty, dusty debris stream was laid down by the Leonids’ parent comet more than five hundred years ago in 1466.This has been puzzling the astronomers as to how such an old comet would create a strong shower in this present year. The Leonids are created by bits of debris left behind by the repeat passages through the inner solar system of comet 55P/Tempel-Tuttle (shown at the left). There are several streams. This year, Earth passed through one laid down in the year 1466. Most astronomers did not expect it to produce much. . In 2008 this event already took place and observers across Asia and Europe counted as many as 100 meteors per hour. 2008 outburst proved that the 1466 stream is rich in meteor-producing debris, setting the stage for an even better display in 2009.

The Earth will pass through the 1466 stream again this year, but this time it will be much closer to the centre. Astronomers now predict the 2009 Leonids could produce more than 500 shooting stars per hour for sky watchers with clear skies in certain locations and Asia will be the best place to view these showers.

The annual Leonid meteor shower occurs when debris from Comet Tempel-Tuttle intercepts the Earth at a very high velocity. This debris lies in a collection of narrow streams produced by different passes of the comet. These streams are pretty well understood, which has led to high accuracy in predicting Leonid shower performance. Except for periods of high activity that occur for several years around Tempel-Tuttle’s near passage of Earth (every 33 years), the Leonids are a fairly minor shower.

Credit: Leonids Computer Graphics

The timings of these showers which are predicted by the astronomers are somewhere between 21:34 and 21:44 UT on 17th November 2009. And because the new moon occurs on November 16th, the sky will be quite dark for the Leonid, making the shower storms more visible to the naked eye and making it possible to see lighter streaks more clearly.

Asia and Europe Time

02.30 hrs Pakistan

03.00 hrs India

04.30 hrs Bangladesh

05.30 hrs China

08.30 hrs Australia

21.00 hrs GMT

01.30 hrs U.A.E

Source: www.space.com, www.nasa.gov

Tagged as: Leonid Meteor Shower, Space