"Ron Baalke" wrote in message ...
http://science.nasa.gov/headlines/y2...bleleonids.htm

The 2003 Leonid Meteor Shower
NASA Science News
October 10, 2003

An unusual double Leonid meteor shower is going to peak next
onth over parts of Asia and North America.

The Leonid meteor shower is coming. Twice.

Bill Cooke of the Space Environments Group at the NASA Marshall Space
Flight Center explains: "Normally there's just one Leonid meteor shower
each year, but this year we're going to have two: one on Nov. 13th and
another on Nov. 19th."

Both are caused by comet Tempel-Tuttle, which swings through the inner
solar system every 33 years. With each visit the comet leaves behind a
trail of dusty debris--the stuff of meteor showers. Lots of the comet's
old dusty trails litter the mid-November part of Earth's orbit.

"Our planet glides through the debris zone every
year," says Cooke. "It's like a minefield.
Sometimes we hit a dust trail, sometimes we don't."
Direct hits can spark a meteor storm, which is
defined as more than 1000 shooting stars per hour.
"That's what happened in, for example, 1966 and
2001," says Cooke. "Those were great years for
Leonids."

2001, while a nice show, was nothing like what happened
in 1966.

By now it's obvious these "researchers" have no clue about
the true location of the Tempel-Tuttle debris trail(s). They've
been all but promising a storm similar to 1966 every year
since 1999, and all of them have basically sucked (except
for 2001, and even that was a shower -- not a storm).

Rick