The Leonid meteor shower will light up the night sky until November 30, peaking on Friday night in some corners of the world.
According to The National News, stargazers in some parts of the UAE will not need specialist equipment to see the display as the phenomenon will be visible to the naked eye.
The meteors appear to stream from the head of the constellation Leo — the Lion — which is why they were called Leonid.
They are caused when by the debris left by a comet as it follows its path around the Sun. This enters Earth’s atmosphere at speeds of up to 70km a second, vaporizing and causing the streaks of light we call meteors.
What time will the meteor shower be visible?
The shower is active until December 2. At its peak, sky gazers could observe 10 to 15 meteors an hour. An intense outburst can be seen from 1 am to 1.30 am EST on Saturday, according to AccuWeather Astronomy on Twitter.
In the UAE, the shower will be visible from Ras Al Khaimah after 11.47 pm each night, according to the astronomy website in-the-sky.org. It will remain active until dawn breaks at about 6.09 am when the Earth’s rotation turns Ras Al Khaimah to face the direction of the incoming meteors.
This maximizes the number of meteors that rain down, producing short trails, the report said.
At other times, there will be fewer meteors burning up over the northern emirate, but those that do will tend to produce meteors that traverse a wider area of the sky before burning up, caused by their entry into the atmosphere at an oblique angle. (NewsWire)