Leonids meteor shower will shine in a dark sky

A new moon will allow the comet crumbs to light up the darkness in the pre-dawn hours Saturday and be seen all over the sky.

The vain moon clears the nighttime stage this week, making way for the Leonids meteor shower to shine at its peak.

While known for producing robust storms of thousands of meteors per minute, the Leonids this year are expected to be more humble with a meager 10 to 15 meteors per hour.

But, unlike the 2016 peak, which had to contend with a bright lunar distraction, the moon this year will be new, leaving a blackened sky to highlight the streaks of light.

The Leonids should be most plentiful in the dark hours before dawn Saturday. Although they appear to radiate from the constellation Leo the Lion, they can be viewed in all parts of the sky.

“The Leonids should be worth watching this year,” said Deborah Byrd, editor-in-chief of the online astronomy magazine Earth and Sky. “The new moon Nov. 18 guarantees a dark sky for this year’s shower.”

Comet 55P/Tempel-Tuttle, which orbits the sun every 33 years, is the source of the Leonids. It was discovered in 1865 by Ernst Tempel, and again independently in 1866 by Horace Tuttle.

“The letter P indicates that Tempel-Tuttle is a periodic comet,” NASA explains in an online overview.

Periodic comets have orbital spans of less than 200 years.

As Earth crosses Tempel-Tuttle’s trail of debris, comet crumbs shoot into the atmosphere, burning up to create fiery streaks as they fall.

“The Leonids are often bright meteors with a high percentage of persistent trains,” according to the International Meteor Organization. “Unfortunately, it appears that the Earth will not encounter any dense clouds of debris until 2099.”

Leonids travel at speeds 44 miles per second, and are known for creating Earth grazers — meteors that streak close to the horizon with long and colorful tails.