Near Independence, Missouri, in Clay County, a refugee Mormon community watched the meteor shower on the banks of the Missouri River after having been driven from their homes by local settlers. Abraham Lincoln commented on it years later. The journalism of the event tended to rise above the partisan debates of the time and reviewed facts as they could be sought out. The New York Evening Post carried a series of articles on the event including reports from Canada to Jamaica, it made news in several states beyond New York and, though it appeared in North America, was talked about in Europe. Abolitionists including Harriet Tubman and Frederick Douglass as well as slave-owners took note and others. Many Native American birthdays were calculated by reference to the 1833 Leonid event. It was marked by several nations of Native Americans: the Cheyenne established a peace treaty and the Lakota calendar was reset. One estimate of the peak rate is over one hundred thousand meteors an hour, while another, done as the storm abated, estimated in excess of 240,000 meteors during the nine hours of the storm, over the entire region of North America east of the Rocky Mountains. Although it has been suggested the Leonid meteor shower and storms have been noted in ancient times, it was the meteor storm of 1833 that broke into people's modern-day awareness. Because of the storm of 1833 and the developments in scientific thought of the time (see for example the identification of Halley's Comet), the Leonids have had a major effect on the scientific study of meteors, which had previously been thought to be atmospheric phenomena. The Leonids are famous because their meteor showers, or storms, can be among the most spectacular. Mechanics' Magazine said this illustration was made by an editor named Pickering "who witnessed the scene." Woodcut print depicts the shower as seen at Niagara Falls, New York. The Leonids also produce meteor storms (very large outbursts) about every 33 years, during which activity exceeds 1,000 meteors per hour, with some events exceeding 100,000 meteors per hour, in contrast to the sporadic background (5 to 8 meteors per hour) and the shower background (several meteors per hour). Conversely, young trails are spatially very dense and the cause of meteor outbursts when the Earth enters one. In the case of the Leonids, that tends to peak around 18 November, but some are spread through several days on either side and the specific peak changes every year. Old trails are spatially not dense and compose the meteor shower with a few meteors per minute. These trails of meteoroids cause meteor showers when Earth encounters them. They are differentially disturbed by the planets, in particular Jupiter, and to a lesser extent by radiation pressure from the Sun – the Poynting–Robertson effect and the Yarkovsky effect. The meteoroids left by the comet are organized in trails in orbits similar to – though different from – that of the comet. An annual Leonid shower may deposit 12 or 13 tons of particles across the entire planet. Larger Leonids which are about 10 mm (0.4 in) across have a mass of 0.5 g (0.02 oz) and are known for generating bright ( apparent magnitude −1.5) meteors. The Leonids are a fast moving stream which encounter the path of Earth and impact at 72 km/s (45 mi/s). The stream comprises solid particles, known as meteoroids, ejected by the comet as its frozen gases evaporate under the heat of the Sun when it is close enough – typically closer than Jupiter's orbit. Įarth moves through the meteoroid stream of particles left from the passages of a comet. The meteor shower peak should be on 17 November, but any outburst is likely to be from the 1733 meteoroid stream. Their proper Greek name should be Leon tids ( Λεοντίδαι, Leontídai), but the word was initially constructed as a Greek/ Latin hybrid and it has been used since. The Leonids get their name from the location of their radiant in the constellation Leo: the meteors appear to radiate from that point in the sky. The Leonids ( / ˈ l iː ən ɪ d z/ LEE-ə-nidz) are a prolific meteor shower associated with the comet Tempel–Tuttle, which are also known for their spectacular meteor storms that occur about every 33 years. A Leonid meteor during the peak of the Leonids in 2009
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