Leonid Meteor Shower: When To See Peak In Yorkville

YORKVILLE, IL — How about a little justice, 2020? One way to deliver it to Yorkville would be for the heavens to kick up an intense meteor storm when the Leonids peak later this month.

The Leonids will peak overnight Nov. 16-17. The National Weather Service forecast calls for partly sunny skies during the day and mainly clear skies at night during the meteor shower's peak in the Yorkville area. The crescent moon will be only about 5 percent illuminated during the peak, so it shouldn't interfere too much with your sky gazing.

But back to what would be a perfect storm for 2020: The Leonids have a reputation for meteor storms when the shooting stars fly at rates approaching 100,000 an hour.

Wouldn't that be a perfect redemption for the storms of another brand that have defined 2020?

OK, it doesn't happen that way often.

The last big Leonid meteor storm was reported in the southwest U.S. in 1966, and the peak didn't come close to approaching that number. But the show was still memorable, and those who saw it reported seeing 40 to 50 meteors per second, which amounted to 2,400 to 3,000 per minute.

The meteor shower occurs when the Earth crosses the orbital path of Comet 55P/Tempel-Tuttle, which litters its orbital path with debris. The debris vaporizes when it enters the Earth's atmosphere, causing the falling stars.

Experts say at least 1,000 meteors an hour must fall for a shower to be considered a storm, which they say occurs about every 33 years, the amount of time it takes Tempel-Tuttle to orbit the sun. The parent comet releases fresh debris with every orbit, increasing the likelihood of a meteor storm.

The greatest Leonids meteor storm ever recorded was in 1833, when up to 100,000 meteors an hour were reported, according to Earthsky.org. Then 33 years later, a storm occurred in 1866. That prompted astronomers to predict another one in 1899, but it didn't occur.

The next spectacular Leonid meteor storm didn't occur until 1966, when skywatchers in the Southwest U.S. reported seeing 40 to 50 meteors a second for a 15-minute period during the peak, Earthsky said.

Will Leo the Lion — the constellation of origin for the annual November sky show — spit out a similar number of meteors in 2020?

Well, probably not, NASA meteor expert Bill Cooke told Space.com. The Leonid meteor shower reliably produces about 10 or 15 shooting stars an hour.

The best time to start scanning the sky for meteors is around 3 o'clock the morning of Nov. 17. While the meteors won't fly at the amazing rates they did 54 years ago, patient stargazers should be rewarded if they spend a couple of hours outside.

Get as far away from city lights as possible. You won't need binoculars or a telescope; in fact, those devices limit your view to a single spot in the sky. Though the meteors appear to radiate from the constellation Leo, they can be seen anywhere in the sky. It's bound to be cold in many locations, so be sure to bundle up.

"Go outside, find a dark sky, lie flat on your back and look straight up," Cooke told Space.com, "and be prepared to spend a couple of hours outside."