Leonid meteor shower: All you need to know

The Leonid meteor shower is caused by the dust and debris left behind by the comet Tempel-Tuttle, which orbits the sun every 33 years. When the comet passes close to the sun, it heats up and releases a lot of material, forming a dense cloud of dust and gas around it. This cloud follows the comet’s orbit and spreads out over time.

The earth crosses the orbit of Tempel-Tuttle every year in mid-November, and sometimes encounters the comet’s dust cloud. When this happens, the dust particles enter the earth’s atmosphere at high speed (about 70 km/s) and burn up, creating bright streaks of light in the sky. These are the meteors we see as the Leonid meteor shower.

However, not every year is the same. The intensity of the Leonid meteor shower depends on how close the earth gets to the comet’s dust cloud, and how dense the cloud is. The dust cloud is usually thickest near the comet’s nucleus, and thins out as it moves away from it. Therefore, the Leonid meteor shower is most spectacular when the earth passes through or near the comet’s nucleus, which happens about every 33 years, coinciding with the comet’s orbital period

When this happens, the earth encounters a very dense stream of dust particles, which can produce thousands or even hundreds of thousands of meteors per hour. This is called a meteor storm, and it is a rare and amazing sight to behold. The last Leonid meteor storm occurred in 2002, and the next one is expected in 2034.

I hope this helps you understand why the Leonid meteor shower is known for having a storm every 33 years. If you want to see some Leonid meteors this year, you can look for them on the night of November 17 and the morning of November 18, when they will peak.