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""We're predicting 20 to 30 meteors per hour over the Americas, and as many as 200 to 300 per hour over Asia," says Bill Cooke of NASA's Meteoroid Environment Office. "Our forecast is in good accord with independent theoretical work by other astronomers."

"A remarkable feature of this year's shower is that Leonids will appear to be shooting almost directly out of the planet Mars," notes Cooke.

It's just a coincidence. This year, Mars happens to be passing by the Leonid radiant at the time of the shower. The Red Planet is almost twice as bright as a first magnitude star, so it makes an eye-catching companion for the Leonids"

It was during the Leonids several year ago that I saw my largest (closest) meteor. I had been outdoors watching them for awhile and had decided to go back in the house. I had just sat down on the couch when suddenly this large white streak fly by right in front of the patio door. It was great.

I've haven't had good luck with meteor showers, although I did have a wonderful Leonids sighting for about 30 minutes (at 4:00am!) in 2003. Usually, there's too much cloud cover around here (I live in a temperate rain forest).