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On November 17, 2020, a Leonid meteor streaks across the night sky above Stone Doll in Kuklice, North Macedonia. In 2023, the Leonid meteor shower will reach its maximum on Saturday, November 18th.
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The next celestial spectacle at the end of the year is the Leonids meteor shower. This is expected to produce a steady stream of bright meteors across the night sky.
The Leonid meteor shower has been active since early November and is expected to reach its peak this weekend at 12:33 a.m. ET. According to EarthSky. Sky watchers could see a dazzling 10 to 15 meteors per hour.
Those looking to catch a glimpse of the meteors from this rain are in luck because the moon is in its waxing crescent phase, meaning there won’t be as much light interference as there would be at a full moon, he said. Dr. Sharon Morsink, Professor of Physics at the University of Alberta in Edmonton, Alberta. According to , on the night of the peak of the shower, the moon will be 23% full. American Meteor Society.
The peak is on Saturday, but meteors can be seen at the same rate on the days before and after. Molsink, who also manages the university’s observatory, said the best time to see the shower is after midnight, when the constellation Leo is highest in the sky at any given time. She explained that the constellation Leonid is the radiant point of the meteor shower, which is likely the source of the phenomenon.
“The most important thing is to get away from light pollution,” Molsink said. “You can still see some meteors if you stay in the city, but you won’t see as many meteors as you go outside of the city.”
The Leonids are famous for producing meteor storms, and the term is used when the meteor shower reaches a speed of at least 1,000 meteors per hour. According to NASA.
The Leonid meteor shower, which holds the record for the highest hourly velocity of meteors seen in a meteor shower, produced 144,000 meteors per hour in 1966. American Meteor Society. This shower also caused a higher rate of explosions in 1999 and 2001, but society estimates that by 2099, when Earth is predicted to encounter a dense cloud of debris from its parent comet Tempel-Tuttle, , no further storms are expected.
As the comet moves around the sun, it leaves behind a trail of rocks and dust that appears as the annual Leonid meteor shower as the Earth moves through the debris as it travels in its own orbit.
Although this year’s Leonids storm event is not predicted, there’s always a chance we’ll see a few more meteors than predicted, Molsink said.
“It’s always fun to go out and see a meteor shower for the first time,” she said. “This is an interesting connection that we have with the entire solar system. Here is this comet, far away from us, that has been orbiting the sun for an incredibly long time, probably billions of years. …It’s a way for us to connect with things that are really far away.”
Meteors from the Leonid meteor shower are expected to be seen shining in the sky until the rains end on December 2nd. American Meteor Society. If you’d like to see more, here are the remaining meteor showers that will peak in 2023.
● Geminid meteor shower: December 13th to 14th
● Urinidae: December 21st-22nd
There will be two more full moons in 2023. According to the Farmer’s Yearbook:
●November 27th: Beaver Moon
●December 26th: Cold Moon