What does it mean that the Leonid meteor shower is a celestial body?

Every year around mid-June, we will see some meteors forming in the sky. These meteors are called Leonid Meteor Shower, which is very worth watching. So what is the Leonid meteor shower according to the constellation knowledge? Is it a celestial body?

Q: Is the Leonid meteor shower a celestial body?

Answer: No, meteor shower is not a celestial body, but an astronomical phenomenon. Leonid meteor shower is named after its radiant point is in Leo. Leo's nebula is a celestial body outside the solar system and has nothing to do with meteor showers.

What is the Leonid meteor shower?

The Leonid meteor shower, known as the king of meteor showers, is a meteor shower connected with Comet Templeton, with a period of about 33 years. Every year 165438+ 10 month 14 to 2 1 or so. Generally speaking, the number of meteors is about 10 to 15 per hour, but the Leonid meteor shower has a peak every 33 to 34 years, and the number of meteors can exceed several thousand per hour. This phenomenon is closely related to the period of Comet Temple Tuttle.

Characteristics of Leonid Meteor Shower

Two kinds of flows

1, the first part is called "rainstorm".

It consists of newly ejected 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. Historically, the local peak of 1998 rainstorm occurred at 4: 30am Beijing time165438+1October 18, and the hourly zenith meteor flow was about 180, which was basically consistent with the forecast.

2. The second is a meteor shower 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.

Historically, one of the characteristics of the Leonid meteor shower in 1998 is the 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.

speed

Fast speed is the biggest feature of Leonid meteor shower, and most of the particles in Leonid meteor shower are very small (