THE LEONID METEORS.

Waikato Times, Volume 112, Issue 18805, 29 November 1932, Page 8

THE LEONID METEORS.

NOT DUE TILL NEXT YEAR. THE WORLD HOAXED. (From a Correspondent.) ADELAIDE, Nov. 24. The big meteor mystery has been solved. The famous Leonid shower has hoaxed the world, for it is not due until November, 1933. The Government Astronomer (Mr G. F. Dodwell) announced this revelation to-day. Astronomers who expected to see the brilliant sky spectacle on November 16 and 17 apparently were astray in their reckoning, so all the elaborate preparations to record the longawaited Leonid display, all hours of lost sleep, and all the stiff necks, were in vain. Scientists, and thousands who watched with them through the chilly night-hours, might as well have been in bed. Since the failure of the Leonid shower, Mr Dodwell has spent hours of research to discover the reason, and calculations forced him to tho conclusion that 1933, not 1932, would be the normal year for the appearance of the Leonids in all their glory. Just Stragglers. True, Mr Dodwell saw 10 Leonids streak across the-sky during the early morning of November 16, and another three on the following morning, but, by no stretch of imagination could either of the appearances bo termed a shower. He says he believes now that the Leonids lie and other observers saw were some of the innumerable straglers scattered round the orbit of the swarm, which is met by the earth every November. It is only when tho earth encounters the main body of Leonids that the real fireworks display is scon. Mr Dodwell said that although the i period of the Leonid shower is on an average 331 years, it is not an absolutely regular period, as it is subject to oscillations, which liavo caused tho meteors to appear sometimes one or even two, years earlier or later.