Leonid meteor shower rewards stargazers who braved the cold
The Leonid meteor shower peaked over the weekend, delighting stargazers who bundled up to catch the early-morning show.
Photographer Matt Dasher went up to Brasstown Bald, the highest spot in the state of Georgia, late Saturday and caught a meteor as it streaked behind the observation deck.
“I go there often for meteor showers and it never disappoints!” he told CNN.
The Leonid meteor shower occurs when Comet Tempel-Tuttle crosses Earth’s orbit. Debris from the comet burns up in the atmosphere, creating the fireballs.
Experts were expecting between 10-15 meteors per hour.
It gets its name from the constellation Leo the Lion, because the meteors come from the stars that make up the lion’s mane.
Thay Chansy looked up and saw two meteors Sunday night in Lake Elsinore, California, and then captured more in a time-lapse video. He said the weather was clear and cold.
The moon was in its Waning Gibbous phase, which means that it was more than half-illuminated after last week’s full moon.
Some years, the Leonids can create what’s known as a “meteor storm” with 1,000 fireballs or more filling the sky. The most recent meteor storm occurred in 2001.
Even though that didn’t happen this year, landscape photographer Michael Yates told CNN he was happy to capture just one meteor on Sunday in Lancaster, United Kingdom.
The brightly-colored meteors move at up to 44-miles-per-seond and come without warning, so photographing them is a challenge.
“I was over the moon with excitement as I have tried many times unsuccessfully,” Yates told CNN.
If you missed the Leonid meteor shower, or it left you itching to see more, you may be in luck. Scientists are expecting a brief, but intense, meteor shower later this week that will have several meteors per minute.
The alpha Monocerotid meteor shower is expected to be visible in the Eastern United States at about 11:50 p.m. ET on November 21 and just before dawn November 22 in Western Europe.
