1998 What happened to the Leonid meteor shower?

It is the Leonid meteor shower of 1998. The Leonid meteor shower has two different meteor groups and sees different phenomena. The first part is called "rainstorm". It is composed of new meteoric matter and has less than two or three regression cycles. The particles in this part are large enough to form fireballs, and most of them are extremely small. They appear around the time when the earth passes through the orbit of a comet.

The peak time of "rainstorm" is different every year. The local peak of 1998 "rainstorm" occurred at 4: 30am Beijing time 165438+ 10/8, and the hourly zenith meteor flow was about 180, which was basically consistent with the forecast.

The second part is the meteor shower, which is called "background". The typical feature is the appearance of bright meteors. These particles have existed for many regression periods. Because gravitational disturbance and solar radiation pressure have stronger influence on smaller particles than on larger particles, larger particles are retained and smaller particles are slowly separated, so bright meteor showers often appear when they meet the earth.

Due to orbital drift, meteors in the "background" are widely distributed in space.

1998 One of the characteristics of Leonid meteor shower is that it has a strong "background" meteor-bright meteor. Beijing time165438+1October 17 reached the maximum at 9: 30 am, and the zenith flow per hour was about 340.

Leonid meteor shower is called the king of meteor shower.

The Leonid meteor shower in 1998 left a deep impression on people, and in history, the eruption on 1833+065438+ 10/2 was even more amazing.

Witnesses at that time described the meteor shower like this: "There was an amazing scene on the earth. The whole sky was illuminated by meteors, and thousands of' stars' danced in the sky. Like snowflakes flying all over the sky when it snows. " Scientists estimate that one can see at least 240,000 meteors in this 9-hour meteor shower.