With all the attention brought about in recent years by the two movies in particular -  " Armageddon" and "Deep Impact"  to the possibility of an impact on the earth by a meteor,  I thought you might find the following interesting. It appeared in the newspaper Hempstead (Long Island) Inquirer in 1833.

Illustration above of the 1833 Leonid storm over North America (probably Niagara Falls, New York) appeared in Bilderatlas der Sternenwelt, published 1892 by Edmund Weik, University of Vienna, Austria.

"The 13th of November 1833, was a star-lit, wintry night, with snow on the ground.  About eight o'clock the sky grew red; the heavens appeared to be pouring flames onto the earth; huge glowing astral bodies fell in such showers as to turn the white snow crimson from the reflection.   Hundreds and thousands of meteors flashed by during the night.  They were seen over an area of three thousand miles from Canada to the northern part of South America.  It was a gorgeous show to the informed, but a night of horror to many who believed that the end of the world had come." - Hick's Neck, The Story of Baldwin, Long Island

"One of them reached the earth and embodied itself in the earth near the residence of Tredwell Smith, about half a mile from our house. Those who saw its descent say it came with a flash resembling a vivid flash of lightning and left a streak of light through the air... We saw the fresh-dug hole from which it had been taken and were told the stone was in the possession of Epenetus Smith, who had removed it. Enqireies were then made of Epenetus Smith . He said he had the stone locked up in his wagon house and that is was not a stone but iron, that it was a great curiosity... And we have word of the highly respectable old resident of Merrick, Elijah Smith, surveyor and school master, that it was on exhibition two consecutive years at the agricultural show for Queens County...

A little flurry of snow had fallen during the day , giving a conspicuous whiteness to the landscape. The shower came on about eight o'clock in the evening and continued all night, an unintermitting cascade of fire, during which period hundreds of thousands of meteors must have fallen. They came from all parts of the heavens, and their paths crossed each other at all angles. How many reached the earth we shall never know. The sky was brilliantly tinted in reds and seemed in a blaze from horizon to horizon. The snow was red from reflection, and the atmosphere appeared thick with fire. It was a night of terror at our home..." - Personal reminiscences of men and things on Long Island, Daniel M. Tredwell, 1912-1917

As it turns out, November 17th, 2000 was a repeat of the event.  What caused it then is know today as the "Leonid Meteor Shower".  It returns every 33 years or so with varying intensity as the earth's orbit crosses the debris trail of Comet Tempel-Tuttle.  The best shows since the occurrence in 1833 of the meteor shower are predicted from year 2000 through 2002 (typically November 17-18), so if you are up after midnight or before the sun comes up - check the skies!  Meteors may fall at the rate of 1,000 per hour a night!  And if we are lucky we will have a repeat of the awesome sight of cosmos that our families watched in freight 167 years ago.  It is called the "Leonid" shower because it appears to be falling from the center of the constellation Leo, if you are wondering where to look.  

Well, year 2000 was a no-go.  But 2001 turned out to be a pretty good year.

This photo was taken from Santa Barbara County, California on a 10 minute time elapse, Nov 2001

The meteor shower will return once again November 18 & 19 of 2002 but a full moon is expected to dull the viewing.  Next return will be in the year 2034. Mark your calendars!

07/08/2007