Azerbaijan will be able to observe the Leonid meteor shower for 24 days, from November 6 to November 30, according to the Department of Astrophysics at the Faculty of Physics of Baku State University, which shared the information with News24.az. The shower is expected to reach its peak on November 18 at 03:45 Baku time, when roughly 15 meteors per hour could be visible.
For observers in Azerbaijan, the most favorable window falls between 02:00 on the night of November 17 to 18 and dawn. Moonset close to the peak hours may also create better conditions for spotting fainter meteors. The radiant of the Leonids, the point in the sky from which the meteors appear to originate, lies in the constellation Leo, which gives the shower its name. Meteors, however, can appear in different parts of the sky.
The Leonids are produced each year when Earth passes through a stream of dust and small particles left behind by comet 55P/Tempel-Tuttle as it orbits the Sun. The comet is a short-period comet that completes one orbit around the Sun in about 33.2 years. It was discovered independently in 1865 by German astronomer Wilhelm Tempel and in 1866 by American astronomer Horace Tuttle, and it bears the names of both.
The Leonids are known for their high speed. They enter Earth's atmosphere at roughly 71 kilometers per second, or about 255,000 kilometers per hour, which makes them one of the fastest meteor showers. As the particles interact with the atmosphere, they heat up, break apart and leave glowing trails that observers on the ground see as bright streaks crossing the sky.
The shower has a history of intense outbursts, known as meteor storms. Notable episodes were recorded in 1833, 1866, 1966 and 1999 to 2002, drawing strong scientific interest. Such storms occur when Earth crosses denser concentrations of material in the comet's orbit. Astronomers note, however, that no comparable storm is expected in 2026.