Leonids Updated at 3:30 p.m. EST Nov. 18
Vivid streaks of light, sometimes several at a time, zipped across the early Sunday morning sky as the 2001 Leonid meteor shower reached a stunning crescendo. A few of the meteors exploded into dazzling fireballs as skywatchers in North America and elsewhere witnessed ancient space dust plunging into Earth's atmosphere and vaporizing.
The event was well documented by scientists, and it will live forever in the memories of thousands of amateur astronomers and first-time viewers who braved sometimes chilly weather and fought off sleep.
"It was a fabulous show," said Jim Graham of New York City, who traveled about 100 miles north to view the Leonids under darker skies. "At one point we saw six at once, in about a second. Some seemed to have a punctuation mark at the end, with a little trail that blows up. We saw one that lit up a big piece of the sky and just exploded at the end."
"It was unbelievable," said Robin Lloyd, who works at the American Museum of Natural History in New York and watched with Graham and his son. "It was the most beautiful thing."
It's too soon to say for sure whether the 2001 Leonid meteor shower, which peaked before dawn, will qualify as a storm as scientists had predicted. But early indications point to a storm designation. A meteor storm is defined as a shower that exceeds an hourly rate of 1,000 meteors.
Either way, it was unlike anything seen on Earth since 1966, professionals and casual observers agreed. And astronomers say it won't be repeated for nearly a century.
Reports from many locations
Early risers from California to Ohio to Virginia and elsewhere described similar experiences -- an occasionally wild show with peaks and lull, all lasting from shortly after midnight until dawn.
Some witnesses described fast-moving meteors, zooming across all parts of the sky and sometimes leaving smoky trails.
In rural Maryland under fairly dark skies, this reporter counted four meteors per minute during a five-minute stretch at 4 a.m., but by 5 a.m. that count grew to more than eight per minute. That equates to an hourly rate of 480. But many meteors went unseen on a foggy horizon.
A group of scientists reported an hourly rate of 800 shooting stars above New Mexico. A Texas observer counted dozens in a few seconds -- and did so several times. Other groups observing in the Southwest reported preliminary estimates in the neighborhood of 2,000 meteors per hour for a short stretch of time.
A stronger display was expected in Australia and parts of eastern Asia. One preliminary report from a group of NASA scientists claimed an hourly rate of 1,250 meteors in Hawaii. One early and rough report from China indicates rates may have reached 2,000 or more.
Behind the show
The display was the result of space dust vaporizing in Earth's atmosphere. Most of the shooting stars were created by stuff no larger than sand grains. The debris is the exhaust of comet Tempel-Tuttle, which orbits the Sun every 33 years. Earth passed through several separate trails of this debris over the weekend. Some of the trails had been laid down centuries ago.
Four different research groups had predicted when and where various peaks of activity would occur, and how many meteors per hour would be visible at the peak time. But meteor shower forecasting is in its infancy. Serious Leonids forecasts go back to just 1998.
The predictions for North American ranged from 800 meteors per hour to 4,200. In parts of Asia and Australia, a peak hourly rate of 8,000 or more was expected. The hourly rates were expected to be achieved during short bursts that would last 30 minutes or less.
The show is not entirely over. Though the peak is past, the Leonids will wind down through Nov. 21. Each morning until then offers an opportunity to see some shooting stars, both those associated with the Leonids as well as others.
This time of year is a busy one for shooting stars in general.
Monday morning observers with dark skies can expect to see up to 35 total meteors per hour in the Northern Hemisphere and 20 in the Southern Hemisphere, according to Robert Lunsford of the American Meteor Society. Unpredictable bursts of Leonid activity could send the rates higher for short stretches. Similar activity was spotted early Friday and Saturday.
While the Leonids are also visible in Europe and elsewhere, the strong bursts of activity were confined to a few regions of the globe.
Next year's Leonids are expected to equal or exceed this year's count, but the show will be largely drowned out by a full Moon.
Satellite threat
Satellite operators have been watching the Leonids with wary eyes. A fast-moving Leonid meteor can damage or disable a satellite. NASA scientist and meteor forecaster Bill Cooke said before the shower that there would be between 1-in-10,000 and 1-in-1,000 chance of at least one satellite being significantly damaged during the full duration of the shower.
So far, there have been no reports of satellite damage.
Defense officials have said military satellites are more robust than most and are capable of withstanding an impact. Measures were taken to protect spy satellites and other spacecraft critical to military operations, but officials would not say what those precautions were.
| WHAT READERS SAW |
| Several SPACE.com readers sent in their tallies. Here are a few: Thomas Spaziani and fellow students counted 1,284 meteors in a 30-minute period in Tucson, Arizona. The students were participating in an astrophysics class assignment at Arizona State University. Greg Rutter of Queensland, Australia witnessed "at times a count of the order of 20-25 per minute (average being around 10) with four to five being visible simultaneously on occasions." Greg Strickland saw meteors while driving from Los Angeles to Lake Castaic, about 25 miles north, and back. While at the lake, he saw "several periods when we had several trails in rapid succession, and a few times when there were three or four at once." Robert Pearlman, editor of collectSPACE.com, said: "I first went out at around midnight and almost immediately spotted a few random streaks. Within a five-ten minute period, I spotted at least two large fireballs -- one that burned bright yellow and another bright green." Pearlman was watching from his rooftop in Arlington, VA. |
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Leonids 2001 Special Report
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