Leonids from Leo
Is Leo leaking? Leo, the famous sky constellation visible on the left of the
above all-sky photograph,
appears to be the source of all the
meteors seen in 1998's
Leonids Meteor Shower.
That
Leonids point back to
Leo is not a surprise - it is the reason that this November
meteor shower
is called the Leonids.
Sand-sized debris expelled from
Comet Tempel-Tuttle
follows a well-defined orbit about our Sun,
and the part of the orbit that approaches
Earth
is superposed in front of the constellation Leo.
Therefore, when Earth crosses this orbit, the radiant point of
falling debris appears in Leo.
Over 150
meteors
can be seen in the
above four-hour effort.
The intensity of the
Leonid Meteor Shower in 2001 is uncertain
but may approach one per second for
some locations on November 18.