PARIS, Nov 19: The Leonid shooting stars returned over western Europe and North America on Tuesday, enthralling some lucky astronomers with a once-in-a-generation show but leaving others, blanketed by thick cloud, cruelly disappointed.
The meteors show up every November, when the Earth slams into a trail of rubble left by the comet Tempel-Tuttle, causing the debris to burn up in glittering, fiery streaks as it enters the atmosphere.
This year had been billed as the greatest spectacle for the next three decades, and skywatchers living in countries where the meteor shower was visible at its peak had been awaiting the moment for months.
Many of those who lived in the central latitudes of western Europe were disappointed by cloud and fog which added to viewing problems caused by a bright, almost full Moon.
But in Scandinavia and parts of North America, it was a different story.
Astronomers saw a meteor every five or six seconds during two dazzling 15-minute peaks six hours apart, even though this was not the “storm” that many had hoped.
Contributions to the dozens of Leonids reporting sites on the Internet painted a tableau of a sky streaked with gold and green, with the occasional flare of a fireball, as the comet’s stony legacy burned up.
“Great show!” enthused Jarle Aasland of Stavanger, Norway, as a Leonid streaked overhead shortly before dawn European time, when the first meteor wave hit.
“I have seen three nice Earthgrazers in the past five minutes ... all blue green in color and all had a fluffy look to the tail,” said John Turner of Fort Pierce, Florida, reporting on spaceweather.com. “Absolutely amazing!” .
“There were too many shooting stars to count,” Phillipe Ayres, who watched the event with his family in Port St. Lucie, Florida, told space.com. “The colors were bright and clear with momentary smoke trails.”
Comets are believed to mainly composed of frozen water and frozen carbon dioxide, mixed with rocks, pebbles and dust. As they come closer to the Sun, the ice melts, depositing tiny pieces of rocks and dust in a wake that gradually widens out as the centuries pass.
They whack into the Earth’s atmospheric molecules at 71 kilometers (44 miles) per second, and the friction causes them to vaporize and burn up.
As they appear in the sickle-shaped constellation of Leo, the Lion, the meteors are known as the Leonids.
In recent years, the Leonids have been magnificent because of the rocky treasure deposited by Tempel-Tuttle during its last flyby, in 1998.
This year’s meteors had been eagerly awaited because the Earth ploughed through two thick trails left in 1767 and in 1866.
Cosmic arithmetic means this will be the last time for many years that our planet will traverse such a rich meteor source, probably until 2033, after the comet’s next flyby, or maybe even as long as 2098.
Asia and the southern hemisphere were left out of this year’s Leonids party because of the time and the Earth’s tilt, although astronomers there followed events via the Internet, where photographs and film clips were posted by their lucky colleagues on the other side of the world.
The Leonids continue for the next couple of days, but at a far weaker rate, before tailing off completely.
The next chance to see a meteor will be on December 14, when the annual Geminids show up.—AFP