The 2026 Leonid meteor shower peaks on November 17–18, offering skywatchers up to 15 to 20 shooting stars per hour under ideal conditions, accompanied by a favorable first-quarter moon that sets around midnight.
This year marks an auspicious anniversary for stargazers observing the annual “shooting stars.” Sixty years ago, a stupendous display lit up predawn skies over the central and western U.S., recalling historic outbursts like the 1833 event known as “the night when the stars fell.” While the 2026 shower is projected to be relatively lean, astronomers expect fast and bright meteors as Earth crosses the debris left by comet 55P/Tempel-Tuttle.
Comet Tempel-Tuttle Produces Leonid Debris Trails
The Leonids originate from periodic comet Tempel-Tuttle, which sweeps through the inner solar system every 33⅓ years. Each perihelion passage leaves behind a dense trail of dusty debris that Earth occasionally encounters. The parent comet last passed close to the sun in 1998 and is next due back in 2031.
“The Leonids are always early morning before dawn,” said Eliot Herman, an astrophotographer who captures the skies from Tucson, Arizona, noting they are the greenest meteors he observes.
The Leonids are also real fast movers, approaching the Earth nearly head-on with a combined velocity of close to 70 kilometers per second. This extreme speed produces bright streaks and persistent trains across the dark hours.
Experts Predict Peak Visibility Times and Locations
Margaret Campbell-Brown and Peter Brown of the Royal Astronomical Society of Canada predict the peak will hit at 00:00 hours UTC on November 18, while Russian expert Mikhail Maslov places the maximum slightly earlier at 16:00 UTC on November 17. For observers across the United States, the most promising window runs from midnight to dawn on November 18.
The moon reaches its first-quarter phase on November 17 but sets before midnight, leaving the rest of the night dark. Stargazers can look toward the constellation Leo, where the radiant point sits within the backwards question-mark pattern known as the Sickle. Planets Mars and Jupiter will appear close together near Leo, providing an extra feature for morning observers.
Historic Outbursts and Future Storms
The shower is legendary for producing fierce torrents every 33 years when Earth hits fresh dust trails. In 1966, thirteen amateur astronomers on Kitt Peak in Arizona witnessed meteors falling at a staggering rate of 40 per second, totaling 144,000 per hour. Lesser displays of a few thousand per hour occurred in 1999, 2001, and 2002.
While no major storm is predicted for this year, French ESA-associated models indicate that the next big outburst could arrive in 2034 with rates reaching up to 2,000 per hour.
Additional Observations and Heritage
Joe Rao serves as an instructor and guest lecturer at New York’s Hayden Planetarium, writing about astronomy for Natural History magazine, Sky and Telescope, The Old Farmer’s Almanac and other publications.
Historical documentation of the severe 1833 storm includes a first-person account by a minister, Joseph Harvey Waggoner, while traveling from Florida to New Orleans. That account inspired an original painting by Swiss artist Karl Jauslin, which Adolf Vollmy used to create a widely referenced wood-cut engraving.
Astronomers note that periodic comet 55P/Tempel-Tuttle was located 1.84 billion miles from the sun in September 2014, marking its farthest distance during its orbit before swinging back toward its 0.975 Astronomical Unit perihelion on May 20, 2031.
Earlier coverage: Leonid Meteor Shower: Observers Face a Lean Display This Year
