[r9etb]

If we had run into the mainstream, satellites would have been in jeopardy. Particularly big ones like the Hubble Space Telescope.

Ah, but they were claiming we were running into the mainstream, and all of those satellite were in Great Jeopardy!!!!!

As it turned out, nothing really happened except that these so-called experts got to run off with full boodle-bags.

While there is a nugget of truth at the center of the asteroid scare, I'm an admitted cynic on things like this. Too many managers are susceptible to the wiles of gurus, and they'll chase them to this or that trend until it becomes obvious that another trend is more demanding of their attention.

And the "experts" seem to be comprised of smart guys who know both math and marketing.

[cogitator]

Ah, but they were claiming we were running into the mainstream, and all of those satellite were in Great Jeopardy!!!!!

Despite the threat to satellites, I was hoping we were going to run into the mainstream too. Meteor storms are very rare and quite amazing to observers.

According to the astronomers that have studied the Leonids, there is a very narrow band of relatively thick particle concentration. The experts attempted to predict when the Earth would encounter that band, if it did. Because the band is in orbit around the Sun, it is subject to perturbation from gravity (i.e., Jupiter) and even the solar wind, because we are talking about very small particles. But the experts don't know exactly where the band is, and it can't be observed from Earth.

So we missed the center of the band. We apparently came close; the show I saw last November was the best heavy meteror shower I've ever seen, and my light conditions weren't good. But it wasn't a meteor storm. The estimated rate of Leonids during the 1966 storm was around 144,000 an hour. The best that observers saw last November was 1500- 2000 an hour.

This is one picture (a 10-minute exposure) of the '66 Leonids.