I was tearing my hair out. This may be the year that Rao finds meteor redemption. The Leonids occur every year on or about Nov. 18. Earth glides through the diaphanous tail of Comet Tempel-Tuttle and stargazers are tempted with a drizzle of 10 or 20 meteors fizzing across the horizon every hour. But every 33 years, astronomers calculate, a rare and dazzling Leonids storm can occur after the comet swoops near the sun, shrugging off layers of dusty, icy particles the size of Rice Krispies.
Earth plows straight through the comet's refreshed wake.
Astronomers believe the 1999 edition of the Leonids probably won't equal 1966, which peaked at 144,000 meteors per hour. But it is likely to be a meteor gullywasher at 2,000 to 6,000 meteors per hour. A meteor poses no real danger. A meteor actually refers to the bright streak of light that is generated by friction as the comet particle rips through earth's thick atmosphere at 40 miles per second. The particle, known as a meteoroid, sheds its own outer layers of molecules with a Technicolor brilliance before its core is vaporized.