Leonid Meteor Shower, 2011

This is tomorrow's apology in advance for being sleepy. If the skies are clear I'll be up early to check out the Leonid meteor shower which will make me an exceptionally sleepy office dweller. I'll be the office mate who sucks down half the pot of coffee to keep propped upright.

The Leonids are made up of cosmic litter, the legacy of the Tempel-Tuttle comet that will occasionally pass between the Earth and the sun on its orbit. The comet litters a stream of dust particles and debris - typically no larger than a pea on your dinner plate -  in its wake. Each November the Earth side-swipes this stream of comet rubble and the particles become luminous as they hit our atmosphere.

Meteor showers are commonly called "shooting stars" and "falling stars" but they're not stars at all, really, just space stuff burning up in the Earth's atmosphere. The Leonid shower is known for its occasional swings of stunning skies. The sort of stargazing that doesn't require a telescope just an affinity for pleasing aesthetics.


“Some years, the Leonids brighten the sky with storms of shooting stars,” says Astronomy Magazine Senior Editor Richard Talcott. “Other years, like this one, astronomers expect the event to be muted, with observers under a dark sky seeing up to 10 meteors per hour.”

I'm optimistic though. While meteors might not be prolific this year Astronomy Magazine posits that a few of these meteors could leave bright streaks of ionized atoms hanging in the sky for several seconds — or possibly minutes.

So, I'm good to go. My apologies for being unproductive at work tomorrow have been made in advance. My alarm is set for some ungodly early hour. I have a pack of stuff (warm blankets, a lawn chair, wooly socks...it's like packing for a fireworks display only better) by the back door and the coffeepot is programmed to kick out a thermos of coffee in the predawn hours of tomorrow morning.

Viewing should peak sometime between 2:30 and 4:30 a.m. Central Standard time. If you're awake, you should check out the dark southeastern sky.