The early hours of November 17-18 are the time to step outside and look skyward to see the Leonid meteor shower—this is the peak time.

The Leonid shower is a good time to remember there are more things to our lives than hectic work and the routine tasks of living. Take deep, relaxing breaths as you gaze at a phenomenon that existed long before you and will continue far beyond you.

You’ll find information below about the annual meteor shower. The information comes courtesy of EarthSky News, a daily email that provides informative discussions on the cosmos, current news, and matters related to the sky, Earth, ocean, and many other topics.

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The night the stars fell. Engraving by Adolf Vollmy (1889). Image via Wikimedia Commons.

When to watch the Leonids: Watch late on the night of November 16 until dawn on November 17. The morning of the 18th might be worthwhile, too.

Duration of shower: November 3 through December 2. This time period is when we’re passing through its meteor stream in space!

Expected meteors at peak, under ideal conditions: Under a dark sky with no moon, you might see 10 to 15 Leonid meteors per hour.

Note: The famous Leonid meteor shower produced one of the greatest meteor storms in living memory. Rates were as high as thousands of meteors per minute during a 15-minute span on the morning of November 17, 1966. That night, Leonid meteors did, briefly, fall like rain. Some who witnessed it had a strong impression of Earth moving through space, fording the meteor stream.

Leonid meteor storms sometimes recur in cycles of 33 to 34 years. But the Leonids around the turn of the millennium – while wonderful for many observers – did not match the shower of 1966. And, in most years, the Lion whimpers rather than roars.

The Leonid meteor shower of 1833
Adolf Vollmy produced the famous engraving above of the 1833 Leonid meteor shower for the Adventist book “Bible Readings for the Home Circle.” It’s based on a painting by Swiss artist Karl Jauslin, which, in turn, was based on a first-person account of the 1833 storm by a minister, Joseph Harvey Waggoner, who saw the 1833 shower on his way from Florida to New Orleans.

In that famous shower, hundreds of thousands of meteors per hour fell. It was the first recorded meteor storm of modern times.

Read the full EarthSky News email about the Leonid shower…

or, if you miss the Leonids, watch this video: