Regulate the sky early Monday morning for the Leonid meteors, and a attainable second auroral storm.
As soon as each different technology, the Lion roars. If skies are clear Monday morning, maintain an eye fixed out for among the finest annual November showers, the Leonid meteors. Additionally, as an additional deal with, the skies might stream with aurora as soon as once more.
To make certain, 2025 is an off 12 months for the bathe. However this 12 months does have a couple of issues going for it. First is the part of the Moon: 2025 sees the Moon as a slim 6% waning crescent part, rising solely 2 hours earlier than the Solar. This implies the sky will likely be comparatively darkish and moonlight-free. Additionally, we’re inside a decade now from the anticipated peak for the bathe. As soon as each 33 years, the bathe places on a tremendous present, hitting storm ranges over a thousand meteors per hour.
The Leonid meteor radiant, wanting east at 2AM native. Credit score: Stellarium.
Within the late ’90s we noticed a definite ramp up in exercise from the Leonids, main as much as an historic peak in 1999 and 2000. We witnessed a tremendous show from the Leonids whereas watching from the darkish deserts of Kuwait in November 1998, as fireballs lit up the desert flooring proper earlier than daybreak. It was nonetheless one of the vital memorable astronomical sights I ever noticed. Wanting into an lively meteor storm radiant is the one time I had an actual sense of hurtling by means of house, a ‘Star Trek’ looking-warp pace impact. I’d even put a meteor storm proper up there with an important auroral storm and a complete photo voltaic eclipse, by way of astronomical occasions you must see a minimum of as soon as in your lifetime.
Again to 2025. Although charges are anticipated to be down, It’s all the time value holding an eye fixed out if skies are clear tonight.
Aurorae mild up the skies over Conestoga River on the evening of November eleventh, 2025. Credit score: Marion Haligowski.
However there’s another excuse to observe the skies Sunday evening. Huge sunspot area AR 4274 which lit up the skies final Tuesday evening kicked off one other X-class flare on Friday, November 14th. Although the group is now on the photo voltaic limb rotating away from us, it might ship a glancing blow to the Earth’s house climate atmosphere on the evening of November 16/seventeenth. The Veteran’s Day storm despatched aurora as far south as Florida and Hawaii, and is value anticipating if skies are clear.
Sky cowl prospects for November seventeenth, at 1:00 AM EST. Credit score: NOAA.
The supply of the Leonids is periodic comet 55P/Tempel-Tuttle. On a 33-year orbit, the radiant for the bathe sits within the Sickle asterism and rises to the northeast for mid-northern latitude viewers round 11 AM native. Leonids are quick movers, and often have a blue-white look.
The orbit of Comet 55P/Tempel-Tuttle. Credit score: NASA/JPL.
Leonid storms within the nineteenth century sparked curiosity within the area of meteor science, and led to the connection between meteors and meteorites hailing from house, reasonably than being seen as a purely atmospheric phenomenon. The 1966 Leonids nonetheless stand as one of the vital superb meteor showers on file, with observers within the U.S. southwest documenting an estimated 160,000 per hour (!)
Information of the Leonids go all the best way again to 902 AD, and “The Yr of Stars” famous in Arab annuals. The 1833 Leonids actually startled early risers on the U.S. Japanese Seaboard, when the sky appeared awash in taking pictures stars. Although poet Walt Whitman might have witnessed the Leonids in his early years, his poem *Yr of Meteors 1859-1860* typically attributed to the Leonids extra doubtless refers back to the Nice Meteor Procession of 1860.
A woodcut engraving of the nice meteor storm of 1833. Public Area picture.
Watching meteor showers is among the best kinds of observations you are able to do… you simply want a set of working Mk-1 eyeballs and endurance. You may also tune your radio and hear for meteor pings on the FM dial.
Meteors enter the Earth’s environment as seen from the Worldwide Area Station. Credit score: NASA.
The Leonids additionally function an important opening act for subsequent month’s Geminid meteors.
Will the lion roar once more as we close to 2033? Will astrophotographers nab the enviable ‘meteor plus aurora’ seize? Regulate the sky Sunday evening into Monday morning to seek out out!
