Students bundled up and braved the morning chill on Sunday to catch a glimpse of the annual Leonid meteor shower. Jumbos all over campus woke up early or stayed up late to watch the luminous streaks dash across the dark sky in what was billed as the best show in 30 years.
"It was spectacular!" freshman Lisa Schupmann said of the shower, which peaked around 5 a.m. yesterday morning. Schupmann and friends joined other students watching the shower from the Tisch roof, but soon relocated to the fields across from Cousens where they thought it would be less noisy.
"It was nice to lie down on the ground, but it got really cold," Schupmann said.
Others watched the meteors from just outside their dorms, from the rooftops of houses, or just on their walks home.
"There was one that was a greenish color, and a few that lasted a really long time. I saw four together at the same time," junior Brendan Smyth said. Smyth watched the natural light show from the roof of Alpha Tau Omega.
Schupmann was also surprised how well they she could see the meteors.
"I was amazed how bright some of them were, and some left such a distinct trail. I didn't expect some of them to be that bright because of the lights from Boston and Medford," she said.
"I had never seen shooting stars before; it was my first time being able to see them. It was magical," sophomore Myra Valenzuela said. "I was surprised to see how many people came out." Valenzuela estimates that were 100 people on the library roof Saturday night and into Sunday morning.
"I didn't stay that long because it was freezing," Valenzuela added. People brought sleeping bags and blankets and laid out on the grass to see the shower.
Usually, pollution and weather make it difficult to view meteor showers, but this year the sky was clear and the Leonids were bright enough to be visible from cities. Astronomers had predicted that the show would be exceptional since the Earth was set to pass through a major Leonid debris clouds. The best viewing in the US was reported to be between 4 a.m. and 6 a.m. EST.
Astronomy professor Ken Olum watched the shower from his home in Sharon, MA.
"It was really visually spectacular," Olum said. "It was very much as predicted, we really had a lot of meteors, pretty much at the time they said it would be. People were accurate in the prediction of these things, which was really difficult."
Students that missed the meteor shower may have a second chance next year, according to Olum. There is a possibility of another great meteor shower next year, he says, but is unsure of when and if it would be visible from the US. For example, if it occurs during the day or during a full moon, the meteors cannot be seen at all.
Olum explains that this year, Leonid meteor showers were particularly remarkable because of the accurate predictions as well as weather conditions.
"It was great for North America, the shower could be seen, and the time was predicted well. It might be at daylight next year," Olum said.
The meteoroids, called Leonids because they appear to come from the direction of the constellation Leo (the Lion), are tiny dust particles from the Comet Tempel-Tuttle. The comet passes the sun once every 33 years, leaving a trail of dust - the Earth usually travels through this trail of dust in its orbit around the sun each November.
The dust particles enter the Earth's atmosphere at a speed of 45 miles per second and burn up in friction in the air molecules. When they burn, they leave a shimmer of light, creating the shooting stars people see from Earth.
The big peaks come every 33 years and Olum speculates that the next will occur in 2030.
NASA astronomer Tony Phillips said to CNN that that this year's meteor shower was the most spectacular one since 1966, and was more of a storm than a shower.
Comets, from which the meteors are shed from, are believed to contain materials that formed the solar system 4.5 billion years ago. The comets are made up of frozen balls of ice and debris, along with basic elements and carbon-based molecules. These organic compounds may have given Earth its first forms of life, scientists told CNN.
In 1966, there was a meteor shower with shooting stars ranging as high as 150,000 per hour. Astronomers expect another such shower in 2099.
Sophomore Dave Fernandes was happy that he caught the shower this year. Fernandes first viewed the show from the Tisch roof, then later at a Target parking lot in Everett, where Fernandes and friends were waiting on line for the new Nintendo Game Cube.
"I thought it was pretty cool, it's something you gotta see because you're not going to see it again for a while," Fernandes said.
