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Leonid meteor shower will peak TONIGHT with up to 20 shooting stars per hour crossing the sky
- A meteor shower is created when the Earth passes through the tail of a comet
- Shower mother comet Leonid is 2.23 miles across Tempel-Tuttle
- You should be able to see around 20 meteors per hour if the sky is clear
- NASA says the best view of the shower is just after midnight local time
The annual Leonid meteor shower will reach its peak tonight when an average of 20 shooting stars will be visible every hour in the night sky.
Known for their brightness and color, Leonids feature some of the fastest moving rocks of any annual downpour, traveling at 44 miles per second.
Astronomers should see around 20 meteors per hour if the sky is clear, made easier to spot by the growing, dark moon which is only about two percent full.
You can see shooting stars looking east towards the constellation Leo, but find an area with clear skies and low light pollution.
Most of the UK is expected to be covered in clouds in the next 24 hours, so finding a clear sky could prove difficult, according to the UK’s Met Office.
The Leonid meteor shower is named after its radiant, the point where meteors appear to emerge in the constellation Leo (archive photo)
To get the most out of the annual show, go outside right after midnight and use a wide angle lens to get as much of the sky as possible if you want to take pictures.
NASA says the best way to see the shower is to find an area well away from the street lamps, dress warm, and lie down with your feet facing east.
Most of the UK is expected to be covered in clouds in the next 24 hours, so finding clear skies could prove difficult, according to the UK’s Met Office.
In the United States there should be mostly clear skies during the peak period, with the exception of some thunderstorms along the west coast of the country.
Shooting stars travel at about 45 miles per second (72 km / s), and about half of them leave visible trains that sometimes linger for seconds later.
Leonid rain occurs when meteoroids, small rocks, fall towards Earth after breaking away from comet Tempel-Tuttle.
These burn and vaporize before hitting the Earth’s surface, causing a streak of hot air that we see as a shooting star.
Visualizations are best when comet Tempel-Tuttle, which takes 33 years to orbit the sun, is closer to Earth, an event that will be forthcoming in about 15 years.
Since the meteoroids that create a meteor shower all move on a parallel path and at the same speed, they appear to come from a single point in the sky for observers on Earth, known as a radiant.
The Leonid meteor shower is visible all over the world, but it is best observed in low light pollution areas such as the Azraq desert in Jordan, pictured here
The Leonid meteor shower is named after its radiant, the point where the meteors appear to emerge in the constellation Leo.
Every 33 years, the Leonid meteor shower comes like a meteor storm, with more than 1,000 shooting stars per hour.
In 2034, researchers predict that observers will be able to witness 2,000 meteors per hour in a “Leonid storm”.
The next big meteor shower in the sky will be the Geminids in mid-December. This is the strongest meteor shower of the year with 120 meteors per second.
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