Get your wishes ready; the annual Leonid meteor shower is expected to peak on Tuesday morning, between 12 and 5 a.m.

The meteor shower will continue until Nov. 21, but the visibility and the amount of meteors per hour will begin to decrease after Tuesday morning due to the phases of the moon and the passing of Earth from the debris.

Though Asia will have a more intense shower (about 200 – 300 meteors per hour), North America will still be able to see about 20 – 30 meteors per hour on Tuesday, according to the NASA Web site.

A press release from Mark Pine, the Griffith Observatory Deputy Director, states, “About one meteor every two or three minutes is expected.”

A new moon and mostly-clear skies will help make the meteors more visible, but viewers should not expect to see a bright shower if they are watching in a city.

“Compared to other meteor showers, the Leonids are often somewhat dim, making them harder to see against the background light of the city. While the beach at Malibu may be a pleasant place to watch from, it is definitely not optimal. The best place to watch such a shower is someplace like the desert or mountains where you can get a very dark sky. Urban light pollution reduces the actual numbers of meteors that can be seen,” the press release adds.

“I was planning on watching the meteor shower, but I realized that it would be hard to look at from the city, so I guess that won’t be happening. But it would’ve been nice to see it,” said Joseph Larson, a business major. “It wouldn’t hurt to try, but it doesn’t seem too promising.”

Every 33 years, the comet Temple Tuttle passes through the inner solar system, leaving debris in its path.

According to NASA, a lot of the debris are in the Earth’s orbit around November. Hitting the debris causes meteors to shower from the Leo constellation.

The streaks that make up the meteor shower are actually debris dissipating in Earth’s atmosphere.

Because Mars will be passing by the Leonid Radiant at the time of the shower, “A remarkable feature of this year’s shower is that Leonids will appear to be shooting almost directly out of the planet Mars,” Bill Cooke, of NASA’s Meteoroid Environment Office, said on the NASA Web site.

“I’m pretty excited to see it. I don’t really want to stay up late, but I think, at least I hope, that it will be rewarding to see. It’s always cool to see something different. I get excited whenever the chance to see a meteor shower comes around, but I always miss it,” said Ana Hannah, a public administration major. “I’ll be watching it from my backyard. I hope the city lights won’t ruin the show.”

ILLUSTRATION: © 2001 Kurt Strazdins and Kurt Strazdins — MCT