Stargazers can wait to catch Leonid Meteorite Shower this week, but you need to set your alarm clock to see the best display. There will be 10 to 20 meteors per hour from midnight on November 16 to dawn on November 17. Only about half of it is visible from the UK, as some of it is below the horizon.
You can see two meteors every night and every hour of the constellation. Asteroids, also known as ‘shooting stars’, are lightning bolts of light emitted by dust or rocks as they pass through the Earth’s atmosphere. Incredibly, these are usually about the size of a grain, but they travel very fast (approximately 66 km / s) and they create a path that shines as well. Stars.
Occasionally, the Earth’s orbit brings us to particularly dense cosmic debris – a path of rock and dust. Asteroid Or Comet. We see this as a meteor shower. The Leonid shower is associated with the comet 55P / Tempel-Tuttle.
The annual Leonid meteor shower usually takes place from November 10 to 20, and will peak on the morning of November 17 this year. While this may not be the most abundant annual meteor shower, Leonids produce a ‘meteor storm’ about once every 33 years, where hundreds or thousands of meteors can be seen. The last time this happened was in 1999-2001, when there were about a thousand shooting stars per hour.
Read more about asterisks:
Meteorites are named for their radiation, i.e., they seem to originate The sky. The Leonid meteorite, for example, appears to be from the constellation Leo. Leonids are fast and bright meteorites with excellent orbits.
To search for meteorites, allow your eyes to adjust to the darkness, and then look straight ahead. It takes about 30 minutes to fully adjust your night vision, so do not look at your phone or use a torch when you see an asterisk.
Although meteorites originate from Leo, it is not important to locate the galaxy in particular – they can travel across the sky. So, to give you the best chance, make sure you can see as much as possible of the sky from the buildings or trees without interruption. Most importantly, make sure you are comfortable with a chair (a reclining one is better), a blanket, and maybe even hot chocolate with you.
Don’t worry if you miss this time, there will be a Gemini meteor shower in December.
Readers’ Questions: Can you hear an asteroid?
Asked by: Harry McClure, Barnstaple
Meteors can create sound waves. As they pass through the atmosphere, they can create a sonic boom just like a fast moving plane. However, since meteorites are usually 100 km or more high, sound travels much slower than light, so viewers on Earth will not hear such sonic booms until a few minutes after the meteorite appears. Also, the sound may not be as loud as it sounds.
Some claim to have seen a meteor shower and heard a sound or noise at the same time. These are caused by the very low frequency radio waves generated by the meteorites, which reach the observer at the same time as they pass through the meteorite. These waves have been shown to cause vibrations in glasses, foliage, pine needles, and even hair. It goes some way to explaining hissing sounds.
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