Happiness Is a Speedy Leonid
This bright Leonid meteor flared low in the northern sky below the Big Dipper at the start of dawn. Bob King Maybe you felt the way I did when you got up at 4 a.m. to watch the Leonid meteor shower. The temperature was 14° F with a hearty wind. I donned all my warm weather gear, unlocked the door and snapped open a lawn lounger. As I eased back into the chair, the dotted outline of Leo the lion assumed a commanding position in the southeastern sky like Simba on the hilltop in the movie The Lion King . Venus shines inside the tilted cone of zodiacal light, a phenomenon caused by sunlight that scatters off comet dust in the plane of the solar system. The meteor at top is a bright non-Leonid called a sporadic. Sporadic meteors are seen every night. Light-pollution-illuminated clouds are visible at right. Bob King Looking at the meteor-less sky I couldn't help but think "naw, this ain't gonna' happen." But not 10 minutes later a modest but spectacularly fast meteo