Abstract
THE imminent return of the Leonids once more attracts us to prepare for their observation and discuss their phenomena. The circumstances this year will be much more favourable, all round, than they were in 1897, but our prospects of witnessing a really brilliant return appear to be somewhat slender. No doubt, on the morning of November 15, meteors will appear in sufficient abundance to gratify moderate expectation, but the conditions scarcely warrant the influence that we are to have a grand display. We must wait until 1899 or 1900 to see the shower at its best. In 1832 it is true Dawes saw many astonishingly fine meteors; and well he might, for the parent comet of the Leonids was very near that section of the orbit which the earth intersected in the year named. In 1865 we passed through a region of the stream some way in advance of the comet, for the latter arrived at its descending node about two months after the earth had crossed the point. There was nothing deserving the title of a great meteoric shower on that occasion. But there was certainly an unusual number of fine shooting-stars, the majority of the objects observed being as bright as, or brighter than, stars of the first magnitude. At Greenwich it was estimated that more than 1000 meteors must have been visible on the morning of November 13. Mr. Knott, observing at Cuckfield in Sussex, estimated the number as more than one per minute for two observers. According to some other accounts the richness of the display far exceeded this, for a captain of a British ship, near the West Indies, wrote to say that the heavens were in a blaze with shooting-stars from 8 p.m. on November 12 to 5 next morning. But accounts of the latter description are often exaggerated, and it is always unsafe to draw any definite conclusions from them.
Article PDF
Rights and permissions
About this article
Cite this article
DENNING, W. The Expected Meteoric Shower. Nature 59, 37–38 (1898). https://doi.org/10.1038/059037a0
Issue Date:
DOI: https://doi.org/10.1038/059037a0