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Why don't meteor showers produce a shower?

When an announcement is made through the news media about an upcoming meteor shower, it likely will conjure up visions in the minds of many of a sky filled with meteors pouring out of the sky like water from a hose. Unfortunately, in just about all cases, your average meteor shower is far cry from that.

Typically, if you're outside on a clear, dark night you might catch a glimpse of perhaps 3 to 6 meteors (popularly called "shooting stars") over the course of an hour's watch. On certain nights, the hourly rate may be somewhat higher, in which case astronomers would say that a "meteor shower" is in progress.

In the middle of August or the middle of December for instance, you might notice that meteors are comparatively plentiful; perhaps coming at a rate of about one per minute. Indeed, these are the times of the two best meteor displays of the year, although one would not conclude that a true "shower" was in progress.

There are rare occasions, when Earth interacts with a dense trail of dust recently shed by a passing comet, that meteors will seem to literally pour from the sky in shower-like fashion. Unfortunately, such opportunities are few and far between. In recent years, the Leonid Meteor Shower in mid-November has provided us with some spectacular meteor outbursts. While perhaps not falling as thick as snowflakes, Leonid rates reached into the thousands per hour in 1999 and again in 2001.

Another spectacular Leonid outburst is due this year - perhaps the last for a very long time. [Leonid 2002 Special Report]

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