Leonids Meteor Shower

meteors · space · astronomy · November

Meteors from Leo. The Leonids are a meteor shower that happens every year in November. They get their name because the meteors appear to come from the direction of the constellation Leo in the night sky.

Dust from a comet. These meteors are actually tiny pieces of dust and ice left behind by Comet Tempel-Tuttle. When Earth passes through this trail of debris, the pieces burn up in our atmosphere and create streaks of light called meteors.

Spectacular storms. Most years the Leonids are a nice but modest meteor shower. However, about every 33 years, Earth runs into a particularly dense cloud of debris and the sky fills with hundreds of meteors per hour, creating a spectacular meteor storm.

How to watch them. The best time to see Leonids is after midnight, when your location on Earth is facing into the direction of the comet's trail. You don't need a telescope, just a dark sky away from city lights.

Radiant point. All the meteors in this shower appear to come from one spot in the sky called the radiant, which is located in the constellation Leo. This is just how perspective works, similar to how railroad tracks seem to meet at a point far away.