SkyMatters: Dr Niall Smyth guides us through the November skies

Agnes Mary Clerke: her crater!

November is the month of the Leonids meteor shower. The shower results from the collision between the Earth and the debris laid down by the passage of a comet first observed in 1865 and called Tempel-Tuttle after its discoverers. 

Over the course of 33 years the comet orbits from deep out in the solar system to eventually rounding the Sun at which time the rise in its temperature causes evaporation of dust that ultimately form the meteors we see.