Four asteroids will fly previous the Earth this weekend simply earlier than the Leonid meteor bathe peaks early subsequent week.
The meteor bathe is lively from November 6 to 30, however it’ll attain most exercise on the evening of November 16-17, based on the American Meteor Society (AMS.)
On this evening the moon might be 5 p.c full, which means there might be darkish skies and good viewing situations—relying on the climate the place you’re in fact.
Some observers are already reporting that they’ve noticed Leonid meteors, however exercise will improve main as much as the height.
At most exercise, you could possibly see between 10 and 15 meteors—colloquially often called “shooting stars”—per hour, EarthSky reported.
For the perfect viewing situations, head to an space away from gentle air pollution the place you could have a transparent view of the sky. No particular tools is critical to see the meteors, however it could be value bringing a reclining chair as you will have to look at the sky for an prolonged interval—at the very least an hour, sometimes.
The Leonids are finest identified for producing meteor meteor storms—that are notably intense meteor showers—notably in 1833, 1866, 1966, 1999, and 2001.
The most well-known of those is the meteor storm of 1833, which reportedly produced a staggering 100,000 to 200,000 meteors per hour.
Unfortunately, an intense meteor storm will not be anticipated in 2020. These intense outbursts of exercise are inclined to happen when the dad or mum object of the Leonids—the comet 55P/Tempel-Tuttle—is close to its closest strategy to the solar.
Meteor showers are celestial occasions throughout which quite a few meteors stream throughout the evening sky, showing to originate from a single level often called the radiant. These occasions happen when the Earth passes by way of streams of cosmic particles left behind by comets, and (hardly ever) asteroids.
Before the Leonids peak, 4 asteroids will make a detailed strategy to Earth over the course of the weekend.
The largest of those, dubbed 2020 ST1, will come inside 4.5 million miles of Earth at 3:45 a.m. ET on November 14 whereas touring at round 18,000 miles per hour, based on NASA’s Center for Near Earth Studies (CNEOS.)
The giant area rock is estimated to measure as much as 787 ft in diameter, which is barely taller than the Golden Gate Bridge in San Francisco.
The area rock often called 2019 VL59 is the following largest, measuring as much as round 127 ft in diameter. It will make its closest strategy to our planet at 5:26 a.m. on November 15.
The different two asteroids, which make their closest approaches on Sunday are comparatively small, measuring as much as round 36 and 49 ft in width respectively.
iStock