Meteor shower to peak early Tuesday

The annual Leonids meteor shower will peak in the pre-dawn hours Tuesday with the best views expected from Asia.

“We’re predicting 20 to 30 meteors per hour over the Americas, and as many as 200 to 300 per hour over Asia,” said Bill Cooke of NASA’s Meteoroid Environment Office.

The tiny high-speed particles are created by the comet Swift-Tuttle, which passes through the inner solar system every 33 years on its orbit around the sun.

As the moon is not lighting the sky, astronomers predict a strong peak of activity in the shower this year, space.com reported.

The shower will be significant in the Northern Hemisphere; however, urban dwellers and suburbanites will see far fewer, as the fainter meteors will be drowned out by local lights.

Another outburst of Leonids may take place just before dawn Wednesday in Asia.