Leonid Is Upon Us, But We're Running Low on 'Meteors'

If you're not one to miss a meteor shower, you may want to rise before the Sun tomorrow morning. That's reportedly when the Leonid Meteor Shower will see its height of activity. However, we won't mislead you, the sky is not going to light up with countless shooting stars.

The annual Leonid shower is one shower that adamant sky-watchers refuse to miss every year because, as far as sky shows go, it has a great track record. The Leonids have been behind some stunning shows, such as meteor storms in 1833 and 1966 that nearly whitened out the night sky with tens-of-thousands of meteor streaks per hour. Even at the start of this millennium, the world was treated to a storm of a few thousand.

However, according to Bill Cooke of the Meteoroid Environment Office at NASA's Marshall Space Flight Center, you'll be lucky to see even a dozen streaks in an hour this coming night.

"We're predicting 10 to 15 meteors per hour," he said in a statement. "For best viewing, wait until after midnight on Nov. 18, with the peak of the shower occurring just before sunrise."

So why the low numbers? We're quite literally running out of the comet dust that makes this shower happen.

The Leonids are bits of debris from the Comet Tempel-Tuttle. As the comet draws closer and closer to the Sun in its wide orbit, it occasionally sheds a little of its weight, dropping small stones, ice, and dust into space. These bits form clouds that the Earth can then pass through.

During this passing, the shower occurs, with the debris burning up in our atmosphere and making the "shooting stars" we see. Thanks to the cloud's positioning, the "meteors" appear to be flying out of the constellation Leo the Lion, earning the shower its name.

However, the comet only passes our way every 33 years, and may not always shed a thick cloud to pass through. The consequence? Each spectacular show means there will be a little less dust the following year. And the last time the comet coasted by was 1998, meaning that it won't be until 2031 when the Leonid clouds will get a "refill," according to the International Astronomical Union's Minor Planet Center.