Leonid Meteor Shower is Coming Tonight to a Sky Near You

The air might be downright freezing for the Leonid Meteor Shower but skies should be mostly clear tonight for a great show over Maine and New Brunswick.   Every year in mid-November, the Earth travels through the tail left by the comet Tempel-Tuttle.  And the result – especially on a clear night like tonight—can be quite spectacular with bright streams of light darting across the sky. So why do we call it Leonid?

They're  called "the Leonids" because the meteors seem to radiate from a point in the constellation Leo--literally "sons of Leo."  Larry Berz at the Francis Malcolm Science Center in Easton recommends looking for the constellation Leo in the southeast just before dawn Saturday.

Keep your eyes trained on the area of Leo known as the "sickle."  It’s a cluster of 10 stars that looks like a backwards question mark. Mr  Berz says at the peak around 5:00 Saturday morning, we can expect about 20 meteors an hour or one every 3 minutes. Most of this cosmic dust, Berz says, will flame out about 60 to 80 miles up in the Earth's atmosphere. When it’s all over for this year, the Leonid Shower will have deposited up to 12 tons of meteoroids across the planet-- one tiny particle at a time.

So, stay up late or get up early—whichever you prefer—and catch a falling star. Oh, and dress warmly!