Nov 19, 2002 3 min read

LONDON (AP) – With hundreds of meteors visible over Europe and North America, this week’s Leonid meteor shower may be the largest of the century. “It’s such a rare event that I shall make the effort, no matter what the weather is,” Dr. Simon Mitton of the Royal Astronomical Society said Tuesday.

Stargazers were hoping for the best Tuesday morning in Britain, but predicted cloudy skies and fog threatened to spoil the show.

The reason was simple. This week’s meteor shower may be the largest such display until the end of the century, with possibly hundreds visible in the sky, first over Europe and Africa, then the United States.

The annual meteor shower usually delivers only a few visible meteors. But hundreds per hour might be visible as they burn up in the atmosphere this time, scientists said.

“Even with the full moon, this year’s Leonids will probably be better than any other for the next hundred years,” Don Yeomans, an astronomer at NASA’s Jet Propulsion Laboratory in Pasadena, California, said in a statement. “If you’re ever going to see them, this might be the year to try.”

The shower was predicted to have two peaks, each a few hours long, during which the most meteors can be seen, according to the lab.

The first peak was expected over Europe and Africa.

For instance, in Britain, the show was expected between 3 a.m. and 5 a.m. Tuesday, with the peak in the middle.

The shower’s second peak, most prominent in North American skies, was expected at around 1030 GMT Tuesday. Even though the moonlight could wash out the dimmest meteors, viewers in good locations will be able to see a few meteors or more every minute.

Astronomers predicted that the next occurrence of a Leonid storm even close to this magnitude will be in 2099.

“I say in the very least, a person should step out their back door and look up and give it 15 minutes,” said Erik Hubl, an amateur astronomer and chairman of the Hyde Memorial Observatory Board in Lincoln, Nebraska.

In Britain, Mitton said the meteors would be so bright they weren’t likely to obscure the full moon. But the weather forecast was not auspicious.

There was heavy rain in Ireland on Monday night, and central and eastern England were suffering or expecting the same.

Central and eastern England weren’t expecting rain, but they could experience the same kind of heavy fog they had during the last few nights.

The meteors are dust particles shed by Comet Tempel-Tuttle, which swings around the sun once every 33 years. The shower occurs each November, when the Earth’s orbit takes it through the trail left by the comet.

The dust for this year’s show actually was laid down by the comet in 1866. Most of the particles are smaller than a grain of rice but enter the atmosphere at 45 miles per second, burning up from friction.

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On the Net:

Jet Propulsion Laboratory: http://www.jpl.nasa.gov/