Leonid Meteor Shower Peaks Friday Night
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File photo. Jorge Guerrero/AFP/Getty Images(NEW YORK) — Don’t look now, but the sky is falling. Or maybe you do want to look. Every year at this time, the Leonid meteor shower briefly brightens the sky.
The peak comes this weekend, in the hours before dawn on Saturday. If the weather is clear, you may enjoy a quiet display of shooting stars.
Earth is passing through the debris left by a comet called 55P/Tempel-Tuttle. As pieces — some as small as grains of sand — burn up in the upper atmosphere, they leave brief, bright streaks. They’ll appear to come from the constellation of Leo the Lion, south of the Big Dipper, though they can appear anywhere in the night sky.
Unfortunately, the Leonids are not one of astronomy’s bigger spectacles; there are usually only about a dozen meteors per hour, though they have been known to surprise skywatchers. While Saturday morning is the peak, there can be Leonid meteors several nights before and after.
And if you don’t want to bother with this one, there’s another shower, the Geminids, coming around Dec. 13.
Most meteors streak by in a second or less, sometimes in clusters. The best way to see them is to find a dark place with no street lights and as few trees as possible, and look up.
In general, there are more shooting stars in the morning hours because that’s the side of the Earth that faces forward as we orbit the Sun, so it’s less shielded.
It’s best if you’re far from cities, have clear skies, and let your eyes adjust to the darkness.
Copyright 2012 ABC News Radio