The Leonid meteor shower reaches a peak this weekend.
According to Russian astronomer Mikhail Maslov, although the general peak of all the accumulated dust streams takes place on Saturday 17 November, on Tuesday 20 November Earth will encounter debris that dates from the comet's passage of 1400. This could give a second peak in the shower. Read more
The Leonids are famous because their meteor showers, or storms, can be, and have been in a few cases, among the most spectacular. Because of the superlative storm of 1833 and the recent developments in scientific thought of the time the Leonids have had a major effect on the development of the scientific study of meteors which had previously been thought to be atmospheric phenomena. The meteor storm of 1833 was of truly superlative strength. One estimate is over one hundred thousand meteors an hour, but another, done as the storm abated, estimated in excess of two hundred thousand meteors an hour over the entire region of North America east of the Rocky Mountains. It was marked by the Native Americans, slaves like Harriet Tubman and Frederick Douglass and slave-owners and others. Near Independence, Missouri, it was taken as a sign to push the growing Mormon community out of the area Read more
The Leonids meteor shower will be visible in various areas around the world including Syria on the evening of Wednesday November 16 and dawn of Thursday November 17. Read more
Stargazers have been observing the annual Leonids meteor shower. Most of the meteors are no bigger than a grain of sand and enter the Earth's atmosphere at speeds of about 65 or 70 kilometres per second Read more