A Leonid Meteor Over Sweden

This past weekend, small remnant bits of a distant comet lit up the skies
over much of planet Earth. Incoming reports, however, have this year's
Leonid meteor shower as less active than Leonid meteor showers a few
years ago. Nevertheless, some sky enthusiasts reported peak meteor bursts
as high as one visual meteor per minute. The parent body of the Leonids
meteor shower, Comet Tempel-Tuttle, leaves a trail of expelled sand-size
particles every 33 years when it returns to the inner Solar System. When
the Earth passes through a stream of these Sun-orbiting particles, a
meteor shower results. Pictured above, a Leonid meteor was captured two
days ago during the early morning hours of November 19 over Vallentuna,
Sweden. Although activity levels in meteor showers are notoriously hard
to predict, some astronomers speculate that Aurigids meteor shower next
September might be unusually rich in bright meteors.