As you gaze into the early morning sky Tuesday, consider what you’re looking for: Tiny bits of primordial material generated in the cataclysm that was our solar system’s birth.

The Leonids are bits of comet debris, boiled off comet Tempel-Tuttle every 33 years when it rounds the Sun.

Scientists think comets formed along with the solar system’s generation, some 4.6 billion years ago, when the Sun condensed out of a cloud of hydrogen, helium and some dust. Tempel-Tuttle built itself out of some leftovers and has been looping around the Sun ever since, presumably, and its heart is pristine. Until corrupted on each pass by solar radiation that boils some of the comet into space.

The streaks of light you’ll see as these meteoroids strike the atmosphere probably represent the best glimpse you’ll ever have at the brimstone that ruled the solar system in the early days, before the planets had swept most of the leftovers up. Back then, stuff small and large hit Earth all the time. I say probably see because there are grander examples of this housecleaning to come: comets like Tempel-Tuttle do strike Earth now and then, and always will.

That’s an event you don’t want to witness. And you probably won’t have to. No comets (or asteroids) are known to be on collision courses with Earth right now. Odds are a big one won’t hit for a long, long time.

Yes, you may be related, in a distant way, to the fire in the sky this Nov. 19.