Meteors should provide a good show

Iowa star gazers better get to bed early tonight as one of the best meteor showers in 30 years is expected to hit early tomorrow (Tuesday) morning. Frank Six, a NASA scientist, says the Leonid meteor shower will be a real treat to see.The frequency may be as high as two-thousand per hour. Six is manager of the Space Science Department at Marshall Space Flight Center in Huntsville, Alabama. He says Iowans who want to see the sky show will need to set their alarms for early tomorrow morning. Six says do -not- worry about bringing along binoculars or telescopes — just watch with the naked eye.The best viewing time is between 3:30 and 4 AM. The streaks will be coming out of the east but it’ll be best to look straight overhead. So with all of these meteors falling from the sky, what are the odds of being whacked in the head by one? Six says — very slim as the particles are extremely tiny anyway. It’s called the Leonid shower as the shooting stars will appear to come out of the constellation Leo.Talk about faster than a speeding bullet — Six says these meteorites should be traveling at about 45-miles per second or 160-thousand miles an hour. That’s about one-hundred times faster than a bullet fired from a high-powered rifle.