If you find yourself awake after midnight tonight, put on a warm coat and go outside to watch the Leonid meteor shower at its peak.  These meteor showers occur every year at this time, some years better than others.

 

The Leonids are so named because they seem to radiate from the constellation Leo, the lion, which rises above the northeastern horizon between 1 a.m. and 3 a.m., depending on your location.

Like other meteor showers, such as the Perseids and the Orionids, the Leonids happen when Earth plows through a trail of debris left in the wake of a comet orbiting the sun.

When a comet gets close to the sun, melting ice releases pieces of dust, most no larger than grains of sand. Earth annually crosses paths with the orbiting debris from some comets, and the grains burning up in our atmosphere create meteors.