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A meteor shower is a celestial event in which a number of meteors are observed to radiate, or originate, from one point in the night sky. These meteors are caused by streams of cosmic debris called meteoroids entering Earth's atmosphere at extremely high speeds on parallel trajectories.
Meteor showers occur when Earth passes through dusty debris trails left by space objects as they orbit the sun. While most meteor showers originate with comets, the Geminids comes from an asteroid.
The Leonids are famous because their meteor showers, or storms, can be among the most spectacular. Because of the storm of 1833 and the developments in scientific thought of the time (see for example the identification of Halley's Comet), the Leonids have had a major effect on the scientific study of meteors, which had previously been thought to be atmospheric phenomena.
This list of meteor streams and peak activity times is based on data from the International Meteor Organization while most of the parent body associations are from Gary W. Kronk book, Meteor Showers: A Descriptive Catalog, Enslow Publishers, New Jersey, ISBN 0-89490-071-4, and from Peter Jenniskens's book, "Meteor Showers and Their Parent ...
The peak of the Leonid meteor shower will shoot across the sky on the night of Nov. 17-18. The yearly spectacle occurs when the Earth passes through the debris field left behind by the comet 55P ...
Under clear and dark conditions, people could spot around 120 meteors per hour during the shower’s peak, according to NASA. Meteor showers occur when Earth passes through giant streams of debris ...
The Geminids come from leftover debris from an asteroid called 3200 Phaethon, which takes 524 days to circle the sun. The small space rock, which measures around 3.2 miles across, was first ...
The Perseids — one of the biggest meteor showers we can see — occur every year in the late summer. Meteor showers happen when the Earth moves through fields of debris floating around in space.