The greatest meteor shower in recorded history

By Ross Pomeroy 
Real Clear Wire

November is nigh. Tis the season for Americans to wind the clocks back, prepare for Thanksgiving, and turn their heads skyward to take in the Leonid meteor shower.

Okay, to be honest, you probably don't need to scan the sky for too long this year. As the Earth passes through the debris trail of comet Tempel-Tuttle between November 3rd and December 2nd, the shower of particles from the traveling object will be more of a trickle – just fifteen meteors per hour. Tempel-Tuttle hasn't been close to Earth recently, so its wake of icy and rocky particles is presently weak.

This wasn't the case 190 years ago, however. In the early morning of November 13, 1833, the entire United States east of the Rocky Mountains was treated (or terrified) by what may have been the greatest meteor shower in recorded history. That chilly night, the stars rained down like snow, onlookers remembered. An estimated 72,000 meteors criss-crossed the sky each hour, prompting some people to fall to the ground prostrate, praying to God to save the world. At the time, the true cause of meteors was not known, so many religious persons assumed the end of days had arrived.

But the sun rose as normal that day, and the shooting stars faded from view, but not from memory. Over the ensuing days and weeks, newspapers across the country detailed the extraordinary occurrence.

“Those who were up before the dawn yesterday witnessed a most glorious sight - one glance at which ‘were worth ten years of common life,” the Charleston Mercury reported.

“The whole scene was sublime and magnificent, beyond conception and any ordinary power of description to do it justice," The Georgia Messenger wrote.

To their credit, American newspapers sought out and shared scientific explanations for the heavenly event. As Mark Littmann, a professor of science journalism at the University of Tennessee-Knoxville, wrote, the event was one of the first great triumphs of nascent science journalism.

Will the Leonid meteor shower ever again rival its 1833 performance? It could be some time before we (or our descendants) find out. The next outburst projected to produce at least a thousand meteors per hours doesn't arrive until 2099.