Meteoric Rise and Shine

All you east coast US/Canada star watchers set your alarms for around 0330 tomorrow morning and go outside to watch the Leonid Meteor Shower. Although it is unlikely here to be of the intensity that another meteoric star, POTUS, will be able to see from Asia, it should nevertheless prove worth your while since we will have a new moon and Mars will be positioned on a radial that gives it the appearance of being the source of the meteors. The Leonid gets its name from its apparent origin being the constellation, Leo, but its actual origin is, of course, a comet, Tempel-Tuttle, which visits our "inner" solar system once every 33 years leaving a trail of comet "dust" which, when impacting our atmosphere, creates the appearance of "falling stars".



Picture from NASA (http://www.science.nasa.gov)