Tempel-Tuttle is a small, faint comet with an outsized reputation: its debris causes the Leonid meteor shower, source of the greatest meteor storms in recorded history. It rounds the Sun every 33 years, and each pass lays down a fresh, dense trail of dust for Earth to cross every November.
The 1833 Leonid storm rained tens of thousands of meteors per hour and helped found meteor science.
Leonid storms recur roughly every 33 years, matching the comet’s orbital period.
The comet itself never gets bright enough to see with the naked eye.
Why the Leonids sometimes storm
Freshly shed comet dust stays bunched in narrow, dense trails close to the comet’s position; only over centuries does it spread evenly around the orbit. When Earth crosses a young trail soon after Tempel-Tuttle’s 33-year visit, rates explode from a dozen meteors an hour into a storm of thousands - as in 1833 and 1966. The difference between a shower and a storm is simply how recently the parent comet passed by.
Physical characteristics
Diameter
3.6 km
Geometric albedo
0.06
Atmosphere and composition
Atmosphere
A modest coma near perihelion; the comet never becomes bright, only its meteor storms do.
Composition
Water ice and dark dust, typical of Halley-type comets.
Orbit and activity
Perihelion distance
0.98 AU
Aphelion distance
19.7 AU
Origin
Halley-type comet
Last perihelion
28 Feb 1998
Next perihelion
20 May 2031
Associated meteor shower
Leonids (November)
Discovery
Discovered by
Ernst Tempel & Horace Tuttle
Year
1865-66
How
independent discoveries in December 1865 and January 1866