How many meteors?
A veritable meteor storm with several tens of meteors per minute as last year is much less likely this year, but not ruled out. The Leonids are caused by a stream of predominantly very small particles, less than 1 mm in size, which orbit the Sun with a period of 33 years, together with their parent comet, Tempel-Tuttle. The orbit of the Leonid particles happens to intersect the Earth’s orbit. Each year around November 17, when the Earth is at this intersection, Leonid particles may enter the Earth’s atmosphere and cause meteors, popularly called “shooting stars.” This year, around 3:44 a.m. Greenwich Mean Time, in the morning hours of the night of November 17 to 18, the Earth will pass through the outer regions of a reasonably dense dust trail of Leonid particles ejected by Comet Tempel-Tuttle 8 orbital revolutions (267 years) ago. Around 7:51 a.m. Greenwich Mean Time, the Earth will pass through the outer regions of another dust trail, ejected 4 orbital revolutions (134 years) ago. Re
