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The European Space Agency and NASA are bracing themselves for next weeks Leonid meteors. Scientists at NASA’s Marshall Space Flight Center suggest that up to 2000 meteors per hour will be visible to the naked eye during the Leonid storm on the 18-19 Nov. The Leonid meteor storms happen when Earth plows through streams of dusty debris shed by comet 55/P Tempel-Tuttle. At present the Earth is heading for two such streams. The first cloud will cause a flurry of meteors over Europe at about 0400 UT and watchers in the countryside (away from bright city lights) may see between 500 and 1000 Leonids per hour. The Earth will enter the second cloud about six hours later (1030 UT) and cause an even bigger outburst over North America where observers could see as many as 2000 meteors per hour. Although the Moon will be high in the sky when the Leonids arrive, making the faintest difficult to see, there will be plenty of Leonids for watchers to observe.
Despite the tiny size of the Leonid particles, most of which are dust, their high speed relative to the Earth of around 70 km/s makes them a hazard to space hardware. The European Space Agency has issued a warning to satellite operators to to power down any sensitive equipment and turn their equipment to present the narrowest possible target to the direction of the shower.
Next week may be the last opportunity to witness the meteor storm for some time since, even though the Leonids will continue to light up the November skies each year, the Earth will probably not encounter such a dense a region of the stream for another 100 years.
More info: NASA Leonid Information
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