Leonis Minorids ( IMO designation: LMI;

IAU The International Astronomical Union (IAU; , UAI) is an international non-governmental organization (INGO) with the objective of advancing astronomy in all aspects, including promoting astronomical research, outreach, education, and developmen ...

shower number: 22) is a weak

meteor shower A meteor shower is a celestial event in which a number of meteors are observed to radiate, or originate, from one point in the night sky. These meteors are caused by streams of cosmic debris called meteoroids entering Earth's atmosphere at ext ...

that takes place from October 13 until November 3 each year, peaking around October 20–23. With a weak moon the meteor shower may be visible with the naked eye, however this meteor shower is best observed only from the

Northern Hemisphere The Northern Hemisphere is the half of Earth that is north of the equator. For other planets in the Solar System, north is defined by humans as being in the same celestial sphere, celestial hemisphere relative to the invariable plane of the Solar ...

with telescopic plotting. This meteor shower is linked to comet C/1739 K1 and radiates from the constellation

Leo Minor Leo Minor is a small and faint constellation in the northern celestial hemisphere. Its name is Latin for "the smaller lion", in contrast to Leo, the larger lion. It lies between the larger and more recognizable Ursa Major to the north and Leo ...

, which is a faint constellation north of

Leo Leo is the Latin word for lion. It most often refers to: * Leo (constellation), a constellation of stars in the night sky * Leo (astrology), an astrological sign of the zodiac * Leo (given name), a given name in several languages, usually mas ...

. The meteor shower often only produces 2 meteors an hour. The meteors pass at an average speed of 62 kilometers per second. The Leonis Minorids reached a

zenithal hourly rate In astronomy, the zenithal hourly rate (ZHR) of a meteor shower is the number of meteors a single observer would see in an hour of peak activity if the radiant was at the zenith, assuming the seeing conditions are perfect (when and where stars w ...

of around 13.9 on 21 October 2015,MeteorFlux 2.3
(Select Shower: LMI, uncheck "Use temporary database", select 2015 and click "Create graph") and a zenithal hourly rate of 10 on 20 October 2023.Archive o
MeteorFlux 2.1 Realtime Viewer: LMI
/ref> Being discovered centuries ago, comet C/1739 K1 is ''assumed'' to have an

orbital eccentricity In astrodynamics, the orbital eccentricity of an astronomical object is a dimensionless parameter that determines the amount by which its orbit around another body deviates from a perfect circle. A value of 0 is a circular orbit, values be ...

of 1.0,MPC: C/1739 K1
/ref> but could be periodic and return sometime in the next several hundred years.

References

External links

MeteorFlux 2.1 Realtime Viewer: LMI
(

International Meteor Organization The International Meteor Organization (IMO) was formally founded in 1988 from predecessor gatherings over many years. IMO has several hundred members and was created in response to an ever-growing need for international cooperation on amateur and ...

) Meteor showers October Leo Minor {{meteoroid-stub