A fire-spewing lion and planetary confrontation
The Leonid Meteor shower — one of the year's better showers — peaks this coming Tuesday, Nov. 17, in the early morning Butler sky from after midnight until the start of morning twilight. The constellation Leo, the great lion in the sky, will be coughing up streaks of fire. No need to fear these fiery projectiles from the celestial king of the beasts, but rather take in a great celestial show! There’s added value, as Jupiter and Mars will also be tight and bright. I’ll have more on those two later.
If you’re lucky enough to live in the countryside, away from heavy city lighting, or you don’t mind making a very early-morning excursion, you may see up to 20 meteors, or “shooting stars,” an hour, but there’s always a chance you’ll see even more. While this shower isn’t as great as the Perseids in August or the Geminids coming up this December, conditions for this year’s Leonids are favorable because the skies will be nearly moonless after midnight, leaving you with a much darker night.
You might see a few meteors before midnight. However, you're better off waiting until after midnight, especially after 1 a.m. or so. If you can, and you have the discipline to set your alarm that early, get outside and enjoy!
On Tuesday morning, the Earth will be smack dab in the middle of the debris trail left behind by Comet Tempel-Tuttle, which last visited this part of the solar system in 1998. Meteor showers occur when Earth, in its orbit around the Sun, crosses into debris trails left behind by comets or sometimes asteroids. Every time a comet swings close to the Sun and melts at least partially, it releases tiny bits of pebble-sized dust and rock. Meteors in a meteor shower are best seen after midnight because that’s when you’re on the side of the rotating Earth facing the direction of its orbit around the Sun and plowing into the comet debris. It’s kind of like driving across the country on a warm summer night. You get more bugs smashed on your front windshield than you do on your rear window. After midnight we’re facing the “front windshield” of the traveling Earth.
The debris strikes our atmosphere at speeds from about 20 to over 40 miles a second. That kind of speed generates so much air friction that the tiny particles are quickly vaporized. There is just about no way they can reach Earth. But you may be wondering, how can particles not much bigger than pebbles cause just bright streaks of light? It’s certainly more than just combustion. In fact, most of the light that you see from meteors is caused by the debris traveling as fast or faster than speeding bullets, temporarily ripping apart the atomic structure of the column of air they’re zipping through. Often, it takes a second or two for atoms and molecules to get their act together after a particle passes. That’s why the meteor trail can remain visible a few moments before it disintegrates. Sometimes, you’ll also see different colors in meteors, depending on how fast they are coming in and what gases they are passing through.
These meteors are called the Leonids since they seem to emanate from the constellation Leo the Lion. That’s because Leo the Lion happens to be in the same direction in space where the debris trail and the Earth are colliding. Meteors will spread out from all directions from Leo, which resembles a backward question mark. That makes Leo the radiant of this meteor shower.
That doesn’t mean that you should restrict your meteor hunting to the area around Leo. The meteors can show up anywhere in the sky, but their tails will seem to point back toward Leo. In fact, the best way to watch the Leonids is to lie back on a lawn chair and roll your eyes all around the night sky. It’s a great group or family activity because you can keep each other awake and have multiple eyes looking in all directions of the celestial dome.
While you're out taking in the “shooting stars” in the early morning heavens, the bright planets Jupiter and Mars will also be putting on their own show out in the southeastern skies. Coincidentally, they’ll both be in the constellation Leo, separated by just over a degree, about the width of your forefinger held at arm’s length. Mars is nowhere as bright as Jupiter, but sports a distinctly orange-red hue. Mars and Jupiter will easily be in the same field of view through most binoculars. Even with a small telescope, you’ll see some of Jupiter’s cloud bands and several of its larger moons, resembling tiny stars on either side of the planet. It’ll be much more challenging to see surface details on Mars. However, you may detect some darker markings. Of course, Mars and Jupiter are nowhere near each other physically, but nearly in the same line of sight from our perch on Earth.
To make Tuesday morning even sweeter, soak in the wonderful bright winter stars and constellations like Orion the Hunter and many others dominating the Western half of the pre-twilight sky. It’ll be worth losing sleep over!
Mike Lynch is an amateur astronomer and professional broadcast meteorologist for WCCO Radio in Minneapolis/St. Paul. He is also the author of “Stars: a Month by Month Tour of the Constellations,” published by Adventure Publications and available at bookstores and at adventurepublications.net. Contact him at mikewlynch@comcast.net.
