Meteors Disappoint Watching Students

When the Leonid meteoroid shower streaked across the sky in 1833, people in the northeastern United States took the deluge of bright, flying particles as a sign of the impending apocalypse.

But students who camped out at two o’clock yesterday morning hoping to see a spectacular display of shooting stars said they were underwhelmed.

“I don’t see [anything],” said Alex Cherenfant ’13, who briefly mistook an airplane for a slow-moving meteor. “Maybe one.”

The shower occurs each year when Earth passes through the trail of dust that follows the Tempel-Tuttle comet. Dust from the comet, which orbits the Sun once every 33 years, passing close to the Earth, can burn through our atmosphere at speeds of 160,000 miles per hour.

“You get the trail of a comet passing through the earth’s atmosphere; you get more meteors and a better chance of brighter meteors the closer it gets,” said Samuel M. Meyer ’13, a hopeful astrophysics concentrator.

Swathed in blankets on the roof of the Science Center, students chatted, took pictures, and waited for the few visible meteors to appear. As time wore on, one student began playing star-themed music like “Yellow” by Coldplay and “Fireflies” by Owl City on laptop speakers.

Reports predicted that viewers in China could see as many as 300-400 meteors per hour, but the bright lights shining all night in Boston limited visibility.

“Unfortunately, being a city, Boston has a great deal of light pollution, so this is not an ideal location,” said Talia M. Fox ’13.

By 5:00 A.M. the last meteors had fallen and most students returned for a few hours of rest before class.

“I have 9 A.M. section, followed by 10 A.M. Arabic, followed by noon expos, and 2:30 psych,” added Meylakh M. Barshay ’13 who was trekking back up JFK St. after watching the meteor shower at the Stadium. “The stars weren’t worth it.”