This week, amateur astronomers will be able to watch the annual Leonid meteor shower, which is traditionally considered one of the most active and prominent in the night sky. According to experts, this time in the sky can be seen for about 10-15 bright meteors per hour. In addition, the astronomers say that from the other threads in this case the Leonid stream will feature the fact that he will have two peaks - on Saturday evening and the following Tuesday afternoon. Those who want to see "shooting stars" Astronomers recommend removing from the city of light and wait, looking at the sky. If lucky, one can observe a bright meteors flying at high speed about once a half to two minutes. Any presence of light reduces the efficiency of the observations.
Nature annual meteor showers in general well understood: our planet, moving in its orbit crosses the trail of cosmic dust and pieces of ice left by a comet that flies around the earth once every 33 years. In terms of the terrestrial observer, the upcoming "Star" will be manifested in the fact that hundreds of small particles will fly at high speed on a tangent and burn up in the Earth's atmosphere, leaving a characteristic bright flourish.
Institute of Applied Astronomy of the Russian Academy of Sciences say that, technically, our planet is entered the tail of a comet, and we can already observe rare meteors burn up in the atmosphere, although their intensity is quite small. Typically, Leonid meteor shower is observed from 10 to 22 November. Leonid meteor shower associated with the comet Tempel-Tuttle, which has a circulation of 33.
"This is the most famous meteor shower in history. There is information that the observation of them were even 3800 years ago," - said a senior researcher at the Institute of Applied Astronomy of the Russian Academy of Sciences, Candidate of Sciences Nikolai iron. Leonids meteor is the most studied stream each year, in November of the constellation Leo. This meteor shower is formed by the release of a substance from the comet Tempel-Tuttle, every '33 approaching the Earth's orbit. Tiny particles the size of a grain of sand burned in the atmosphere, forming a star rain. First, it shed with the greatest strength, and gradually weakens. was last superpower meteor rain was observed in 1966, when every hour in the Earth's atmosphere burn to 150,000 meteors. It is expected that the next superpower meteor rain held only in 2099, when the sky can be seen more than 1000 meteors per hour.
