Watching Meteor Showers and Building Memories

The concept of outer space, with its unimaginably distant stars, mysterious other planets, and unknown wonders, can fuel a child's imagination like nothing else. Meteors and meteor showers are particularly intriguing since they represent an actual piece of that mysterious outer space falling to Earth. Every shooting star launches a million dreams of following the meteor's trajectory and finding a space rock that unlocks some long-hidden mystery.

One of my favorite memories is staying up late one night, with my wife and son to watch a meteor shower. He was probably about seven or eight years old at the time. I recall it being very cold, so it might have been the annual November meteor shower known as the Leonids. My son is in high school now, and it turns out that staying up that night to watch the meteor shower is one of his favorite memories as well.

The Mysteries of Meteors after Midnight

On that cold late autumn night, I brought out a chaise lounge for my son, along with a sleeping bag and some blankets to keep him warm. With the reclining lounge chair, he could lie back comfortably and watch the sky. I recall that, during this particular meteor shower, the prediction was for about one visible meteor per minute at the peak of the meteor shower. This was to occur shortly after midnight. Of course, when you're seven or eight years old, staying up past midnight has a special magic of its own, especially being outside after midnight.