The cosmos is preparing my birthday present
The Leonid meteor shower always falls on my birthday, give or take a day. I hope the weather is nice for it this year. A few years ago -- I think 2000 -- they were predicting it to be extra special, but we had a heavy fog and I think I saw *one* meteor.
This article predicts: A brief surge of activity is expected begin around 11:45 p.m. ET Saturday, Nov. 18. In Europe, that corresponds to early Sunday morning, Nov. 19 at 4:45 GMT. The outburst could last up to two hours.
At the peak, people in these favorable locations could see up to 150 shooting stars per hour, or more than two per minute.
"We expect an outburst of more than 100 Leonids per hour," said Bill Cooke, the head of NASA's Meteoroid Environment Office. Cooke notes that the shooting stars during this peak period are likely to be faint, however, created by very small meteoroid grains.
Elsewhere people will see the typically enjoyable Leonid display of a few meteors each hour, weather permitting and assuming dark skies away from city lights.
They're predicting a low in the 30s (that's Fahrenheit -- near 0 Celsius) and partly cloudy, and the moon will be a not-quite-new crescent (New Moon is Nov. 20), so seeing conditions might be OK. Chilly but OK. The street lights may be more of a problem, but that's city life, even in a small city like Weirton.
This article predicts: A brief surge of activity is expected begin around 11:45 p.m. ET Saturday, Nov. 18. In Europe, that corresponds to early Sunday morning, Nov. 19 at 4:45 GMT. The outburst could last up to two hours.
At the peak, people in these favorable locations could see up to 150 shooting stars per hour, or more than two per minute.
"We expect an outburst of more than 100 Leonids per hour," said Bill Cooke, the head of NASA's Meteoroid Environment Office. Cooke notes that the shooting stars during this peak period are likely to be faint, however, created by very small meteoroid grains.
Elsewhere people will see the typically enjoyable Leonid display of a few meteors each hour, weather permitting and assuming dark skies away from city lights.
They're predicting a low in the 30s (that's Fahrenheit -- near 0 Celsius) and partly cloudy, and the moon will be a not-quite-new crescent (New Moon is Nov. 20), so seeing conditions might be OK. Chilly but OK. The street lights may be more of a problem, but that's city life, even in a small city like Weirton.