Annual meteor shower peaks this weekend

LANSING, Mich. (WILX) -The Leonids meteor shower will have peak activity this Friday night.

According to Michigan State University, the shower should produce around 15 shooting stars or meteors each hour.

Dr. Shannon Schmoll said the rocks that create meteors come from a comet that passes by and leaves a debris field that eventually falls into Earth’s atmosphere creating those shooting stars.

Schmoll said, “A meteor is when we have an object from the solar system fall through our atmosphere, we call it a meteoroid or asteroid when it is still out in space and a meteor when it is falling through our atmosphere, and if anything is left and it lands that is a meteorite.”

The yearly shower that always hits in November is called Leonids after the constellation it appears to come from Leo.

Michigan has had many meteorites found around the state, perhaps this weekend more will be discovered.

Although the Leonids is not as spectacular as it has been in years past, Next month the Geminids shower will produce around 150 meteors an hour.

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