DENVER— You'll want to watch for shooting stars in the skies above Colorado this weekend, as one of the biggest and brightest meteor showers peaks starting Friday night.
The Leonid meteor shower is already underway, and it's creating a show of shooting stars for sky watchers and astronomy lovers all around. Those shooting stars are dust particles that come from the comet Tempel Tuttle, which was discovered in 1865 and orbits the sun every 33 years.
The Leonids tend to be bright, producing long tails that last for a few seconds after the initial flash of light. The show above our heads will peak Friday night, between midnight and sunrise Saturday morning.
Where and how to view the Leonid meter shower this weekend
To view them, find a safe and dark location away from the city lights. The meteors can appear anywhere in the sky, and you can expect to see 10 to 15 meteors per hour during the peak.
It's an event the Dr. Ka Chun Yu, the space science curator at the Denver Museum of Nature and Science said you don't want to miss.
"It's a way of connecting us to the sky, and to the universe," said Yu. "Just to think the meteors we have been seeing in our sky come from a comet orbiting the sun for billions of years, is a little bit of cosmic history hitting our earth, the fact that you are seeing it is amazing."
If you miss the meteor shower's peak this weekend, it will wrap up in the next two weeks, so you can still catch some shooting stars in the skies over Colorado.
