What Is the Leonid Meteor Shower?
Every November, Earth passes through the debris stream of Comet 55P/Tempel-Tuttle — a small, icy body that completes one orbit of the Sun every 33 years. The resulting Leonid meteor shower is famous not for what it usually does, but for what it occasionally does: produce storms.
In 1833, the Leonids produced a meteor storm so intense that witnesses reported rates of 100,000 meteors per hour — roughly 30 per second. The sky was described as raining fire. Thousands of people who had never previously looked up at the sky became fascinated with astronomy that night. It remains one of the most significant public astronomy events in recorded history.
In 2026, the Leonids will not produce a storm. Rates of 10–15 meteors per hour are expected under dark skies. But understanding why they can storm — and what to look for — makes this one of the most historically resonant nights of the year.
Why the Leonids Are Unpredictable
Most meteor showers are consistent because their parent comets have made many orbits of the Sun and spread their debris relatively evenly around the orbit. Tempel-Tuttle is different.
The comet makes only 33-year passes through the inner solar system, and each pass dumps a fresh, dense shell of debris into its orbit. These shells are called filaments. When Earth passes through a fresh, dense filament — typically in the year or two following the comet's perihelion passage — rates can explode into a full-scale storm.
Tempel-Tuttle last reached perihelion in 1998. The Leonids produced storm-level rates in 1999 (3,000/hr), 2001 (3,000/hr from different orbits), and 2002 (several brief outbursts). We are now 28 years removed from the last perihelion; the fresh filaments have dispersed. The next perihelion is 2031, and the early 2030s may bring another storm. The 2026 Leonids are a modest prelude.
How to Watch
Despite modest rates, the Leonids are among the fastest meteors of any shower — entering the atmosphere at 71 km/s. This speed means they are extremely bright and often leave long, glowing persistent trains.
Best viewing time: After midnight to 5 AM local time on the morning of November 18. The radiant in Leo rises in the east around midnight.
Where to look: Face east, toward Leo — the constellation that rises in the east in the pre-dawn hours in November. You'll recognise it by the backwards question-mark shape of stars called the "Sickle of Leo."
Equipment: Eyes only. The fast, bright Leonids are perfect for naked-eye observation.
Historical Significance
The 1833 Leonid storm changed the course of science.
Before that night, most people — even educated ones — believed meteors were some kind of atmospheric phenomenon, like lightning. The idea that they were objects from space was not widely accepted. But the 1833 storm was so overwhelming, so clearly originating from a fixed point in the sky (the radiant in Leo) that it was impossible to explain as an atmospheric event.
Denison Olmsted, a Yale professor who collected witness accounts and calculated the radiant's position, concluded that the meteors had an astronomical origin. He published the first systematic scientific paper on meteor showers in 1834. Modern meteor science begins on that November night in 1833.
The storm was witnessed across the eastern United States. Frederick Douglass, then a young enslaved man in Maryland, later wrote of his terror at the sight. Harriet Tubman was six years old and remembered the sky "lit up like day." The Lakota people called that winter "the winter when stars fell."
What to Expect in 2026
Rates of 10–15 meteors per hour are expected. But because Leonids are so fast, they produce exceptionally bright, long-duration streaks with vivid persistent trains — trails of glowing gas left behind after the meteor has passed.
Persistent trains: Watch for the twisting, fading glow that sometimes lingers for 10–30 seconds after a bright Leonid. This is ionised gas from the meteor trail, blown into complex shapes by upper-atmospheric winds at altitudes of 90–100 km.
Fireballs: Even at low rates, a Leonid fireball is spectacular. The speed produces more energy per unit of mass than any other shower.
Colour: Leonids often display green or turquoise colours from magnesium in the meteoroid material, with orange hints from sodium at lower altitudes.
Photography Tips
Phone camera: Long exposures (20–30 seconds) in night mode, pointed east. Leonids are fast — they'll appear as short, sharp streaks even in long exposures.
DSLR: Wide-angle lens, f/2.8, ISO 3200–6400, 20–25 second exposures on an intervalometer. Shoot continuously through the peak hours. Even in a low-rate year, a fireball can appear at any moment.
One Surprising Fact
The 1833 storm was so bright that people reportedly cast shadows by its light. At the peak, the sky was producing roughly 1,000 meteors per minute. No thunderstorm, no aurora, no comet — nothing else in nature has ever produced a more spectacular spontaneous display in the night sky.