Meteor watchers are planning an all-nighter for 17 November, when Earth will plow through the debris left behind by Comet Tempel-Tuttle. The comet zipped through the solar system last year, and astronomers expect rare Leonid meteor storms this year and next. While last year's crop of Leonids provided some spectacular fireballs, they fell short of a first-class storm. This time, experts say the fireworks should have more pop.
That prospect has researchers dispersing to far-flung locales to observe the storm. For instance, Peter Brown, an astronomer at the University of Western Ontario, is leading an expedition to the Canary Islands funded primarily by the U.S. Air Force, which hopes to glean insights into how to better protect its satellites. Other prime sites include Europe and West Africa, says Donald Yeomans, an astronomer at the Jet Propulsion Laboratory in Pasadena, California, who predicts peak meteor watching will occur at 01:48 Universal Time on 18 November.
