Leonid meteors Optical timeexposure image of Leonid meteors white streaks against a starfield The south celestial pole is at upper right Meteors or shooting stars are tiny dust particles which enter the Earths atmosphere at high speeds They are heated by air resistance making them visible as streaks of light The Leonid shower occurs annually for about days around th November when the Earth crosses the debris produced by the comet TempelTuttle P The two blobs of light seen in the starfield here are the Large lower centre and Small upper left Magellanic Clouds satellite galaxies of our own Milky Way Photographed in