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Re: (meteorobs) Re: Leonids 2002: West coast or east coast? - EARTH-GRAZERS
In a message dated 7/12/2002 4:51:57 PM Eastern Daylight Time, Mark777ebay@aol.com writes:
In 1998 I saw earth grazers in South Carolina... (and I believe the predicted peak would be at the same time???) ... How come you would not see the earth grazers this time? Is there a slight time difference from 1998 or is there something inherently bad about being farther South?
1998 was the year of the "resonant meteoroids" originally ejected from 55P/Tempel-Tuttle in 1333. David Asher, Mark Bailey and V.V. Emel'yanenko were the first to point this out. The 1998 Leonids produced by these unusually large particles produced numerous fireballs and bolides that extended over an 18-hour interval during November 16-17. Thus, the odds of your sighting some bright Earth grazers that year was really quite good.
Unfortunately, we cannot expect a repeat of that in 2002. The encounters with the dust trails from 1767 and 1866 will likely produce outbursts lasting no more than a few hours at most. So, when the Leonid radiant finally begins to rise for your South Carolina location, the bevy of activity from the 1767 trail will probably be mostly over.
Still . . . this doesn't mean that a large particle or two might not still be out there and enter the Earth's atmosphere when you're looking. So . . . keep the faith! :)
-- joe rao