Word: meteorics
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...buffs gathered atop Arizona's 7,000-ft. Kitt Peak spotted the first shooting stars streaking across the cloudless night sky. Then, slowly, the glowing trails began to multiply. Twenty an hour, then 30 and 40, until at 5 a.m. the sky erupted in a furious but eerily silent meteor storm that brightened the sky like a pyrotechnic grand finale. Some of the spectators instinctively shielded their faces, startled by the sensation of hurtling headlong into a cloud of flashing debris. An hour--and some 140,000 meteors--later, it was largely over; the storm waned and finally disappeared...
That memorable 1966 display of the so-called Leonid meteors was visible across much of the Western U.S. and marked the century's greatest meteor storm to date. Now, after 32 years of relatively modest return visits, the Leonids are poised to stage another celestial spectacular on the nights of Nov. 17 and Nov. 18. How spectacular? Scientists forecast heavy meteor showers and, just possibly, a full-blown storm as dramatic as the one 32 years...
...globe in 1966 was hit by a Leonid. But today the planet is circled by a bewildering variety of spacecraft--about 600 in all--that have become indispensable to modern society: relaying phone calls, e-mail and faxes; monitoring hurricanes, terrorist activities and crop yields. A collision with a meteor could damage or disable any one of them. That is why NASA, the Air Force and the Russian space agency are directing a wholesale reorientation of their fleets of orbiting spacecraft...
...expect this month's peak display of Leonids to occur over China, Japan and Southeast Asia--during daylight hours in the U.S.--J.P.L.'s Yeomans suggests that Americans who are curious should scan the early morning skies on both Nov. 17 and Nov. 18. They will certainly see some meteors, he says, and the vagaries of the meteor stream may just present them with a good show. Anyway, he says, celestial circumstances make it unlikely the Leonids will perform much in the next 100 years or so. "Do it now or next November," he urges, "or write...
...crew of the shuttle Discovery was apparently smart enough to come in out of a storm, returning safely to Earth last Saturday before the Leonid meteor shower could begin. The mission's glamour boy, however--veteran astronaut John Glenn--was a bit unsteady, both in orbit and on his return to terra firma...