The 2001 Leonid Meteor Shower, probably the most intense meteor shower I will ever witness. And what a way to see it.
Alex knew of a good private beach in Little Compton, Rhode Island that we could get onto. The Cruftlabs denziens plus a bunch of assorted friends packed up some munchies, a lot of warm clothes, and blankets. The peak of the meteorite activity was at about 5:00am local time, so we gathered in a parking lot on campus at 2:30. To stay warm we pushed Alex's battered station wagon around the Kresge parking lot.
It took awhile to get everyone together, but by 3:00 we were on the road for the 1.5 hour drive. I was in the car with Mikkel, Lin-Z, and Erin. I think I spent the whole trip looking out the sunroof and craning my neck to get a good view up. Even while driving through the city we could see the occasional meteorite.
Our three-car caravan pulled into a very exclusive-feeling beachfront property and parked by the dunes. Once outside the car, the full extent of the meteor shower was apparent. There were many within view every minute. The sound of waves crashing came up over the dunes. Being relatively unaccustomed to the sea, I thought it was just wind blowing through the brush. There was a strong smell of kelp.
We walked out onto the beach, layed down the blankets, and everyone just packed in next to each other like sardines to keep warm. The temperature was well below freezing and there was a lot of wind.
We were far enough from Providence that there was very little light pollution. The sky was not as clear as I've seen it in Los Alamos, but it was orders of magnitude more clear than in Boston. For a long time, everyone was so overwhelmed with the meteorites that every single one would bring out an "oh! there's another one!" But after awhile, as the frequency of impacts increased, they came down so often that there wasn't time to point them out.
At the peak, just before sunrise, there was more than one meteorite visible per second. It was amazing. It really looked like rain. Over the course of morning, we saw several that exploded like flashbulbs and some that left wide plasma tails that persisted for minutes. We also saw what I believe was the ISS passing overhead and a number of other satellites.
The best meteor shower I had seen before today was the 1999 Persieds from Los Alamos, but even then it was only on the order of several visible per hour. This was really the first time I would consider them to be showering.
It was deeply moving.
Eventually Venus rose and the eastern sky started to brighten. The added light gave me a better view of our surroundings. The beach was relatively small and flanked by large outcroppings of rocks that shot out into the water. We climbed out onto the rocks and watched the sun rise from this new vantage point. Everyone was so mezmerized by the still very active meteor shower and the glowing eastern sky that everyone just stood there motionless and silent on the rock.
The image of all those solitary figures standing on a thin rock ridge surrounded by ocean, staring off into the sunrise reminded me of a very intense dream I had once and I was lost in thought for awhile.
Eventually the entire sky brightened, swallowing the stars. With only Jupiter and Venus left, I saw the last meteor of the morning explode with a red plasma tail, directly overhead. The sun rose and there was applause.
