Every year around this time, the Earth is visited by a swarm of meteors that is called Leonidas. In 2012, NASA announced thatThe maximum peak of the Leonid Meteor Shower will be reached in the early morning hours of November 16-17, and some especially bright stars can be seen at sunrise. The Moon will be in a waxing phase and will set shortly after sunset, offering a darker-than-usual sky that will help detect the meteor shower. Bill Coke of NASA’s Marshall Space Flight Center predicts there will be between 15 and 20 meteors every hour.
The Leonids arerock and ice particles left behind by Comet P / Tempel-Tuttlein its circuit around the Sun, which it completes every 33.2 years. Every November, the Earth in its rotation around the star Rey passes through the debris left by the comet as it approaches the Sun.
According to the Astronomical Association of Spain,tens, hundreds or thousands of small objects no larger than a grain of rice collide with our atmosphere during this meteor shower, some at speeds of up to 72 km / s, and most of them disintegrate, occasionally revealing bright light streaming across the sky. “There are moments when they are so spectacular that we can hear a hiss; or even the flash can be so powerful that in an instant the ground lights up, or it practically becomes daylight, as happened on November 18, 2009 in Utah.” , they explain from the Association.
In 1699 this meteor shower was first observed and recorded by Gottfried Kirch, but it was not recognized as a periodic shower until the observations of Tempel and Tuttle, when the comet passed through its perihelion in 1866.
