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(meteorobs) Leonids Meteor Shower ... Good News And Bad News

Centre for Research in Earth and Space Technology
Toronto, Ontario

Leonids meteor shower ... good news and bad news

November 17, Toronto -- Billed as the first meteor storm of the modern space
age, the "two-part" Leonids storm didn't quite live up to scientists'
expectations earlier this afternoon, but still offered viewers in the Far
East a fantastic display during its two-hour peak beginning at roughly 2:20
pm EST.

Ground observations collected by the Canadian science teams in Ulaan Baator,
Mongolia and at Tindal Air Force Base, Australia, revealed a density of
roughly 100-200 meteors per hour, posing little threat to Earth's satellite
fleet. This number falls many times shy of the Leonids meteor storm of 1966,
which coincided with the last trip by parent comet Tempel-Tuttle as part of
its normal 33-year orbit around the Sun.

"While it wasn't what we anticipated, it was a great opportunity for our
science team to further develop our predictive model," said Richard
Worsfold, CRESTech's Leonids project manager, who is with the Australia
team at Tindal. "But, it's great news for satellite operators, who now only
have to worry for part-B of the storm, which isn't until this time next year."

In superlative terms, this year's Leonids will not go down in history as the
first of the modern space age but as one of many showers. However, if "part
B" of the storm takes place as predicted next year, as now seems to be the
case, all records are still up for grabs.

The 1999 storm, or shower, will be visible on November 17 next year,
although this time visible over Europe and the Middle East and will quite
definitely be the last opportunity for a major meteor storm for at least
another 30 years.

As of the shower's end, no satellites operators had reported anomalies. In
all likelihood, these reports will, if applicable, be generated over the
next several days or weeks at the discretion of satellite owners.

Generally speaking, a storm requires sightings of at least 1000 meteors per
hours, while a shower requires only about 100. Attached is a list of the
recent meteor showers for comparison.

        * 1998 -- Leonids - 100 to 200 meteors/hour at peak
        * 1998 -- Draconid meteors - 300 meteors/hour at peak
        * 1993 -- Perseid meteors - 350 meteors/hour at peak
        * 1985 -- Draconid meteors - 500 meteors/hour at peak
        * 1969 -- Leonids - 350 meteors/hour at peak
        * 1966 -- Leonid meteors - 100,000 meteors/hour at peak (storm)

The Centre for Research in Earth and Space Technology (CRESTech) is a
not-for-profit science and technology organization created to conduct
multidisciplinary collaborative research and development in Earth and space
sciences. It is based in Toronto, Canada and supported by the Ontario
government=B9s Centres of Excellence program.

For more information on CRESTech's Leonids Program, please visit
www.crestechdot ca, or contact:

Andre Bellefeuille
CRESTech Communications
(416) 665-5464 office,or (416) 707-9120 cell

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