charliekilian wrote:What is possibly happening in 2034 that makes a meteor storm more likely?
From
Space.com:
The Leonid meteor shower is an extremely variable shower. A dense swarm of particles consisting of material that is shed by the Comet Tempel-Tuttle returns about every 33 years (the comet’s orbital period), and if it crosses the Earth’s orbit during November, an intense meteor storm is seen. The Leonids produced spectacular displays — exceeding 1,000 meteors per minute —in 1799, 1833, 1866 and 1966 (when observers were left awestruck by the appearance of more than 2,000 per minute). The great swarm that produces these spectacular displays passed through aphelion – its farthest point from the sun, near the orbit of Uranus – last year, and the Leonids have been correspondingly weak in recent years. [...] The last really bright and spectacular Leonid shower occurred in 2001, when Leonids could be seen at rates of up to 40 per minute. Adding 33 years to 2001, the 2034 Leonids are, naturally, eagerly awaited.
I'm not sure why adding 33 to 1966 gets 2001, but I'll leave that to the mathematicians. [Edited to add: Ah, I see, one adds
about 33.]
I remember reading something about the Comet Tempel-Tuttle being expected to have its path altered by passing close to Jupiter, which might mess up that 33-year cycle in the future, but there's nothing about that in
the comet's Wikipedia article.