November welcomes the return of the Leonid meteor shower, so named because it seems to emanate from within the constellation Leo, the Lion. The meteoroids that cause the display were once part of Comet Tempel-Tuttle, which orbits the Sun every thirty-three years (its last close approach to the Sun, the perihelion, was in 1998). The comet's periodic nature was first established and its orbit plotted following its observation in the winter of 1865-1866 by both the German astronomer Wilhelm Tempel and the American astronomer Horace Parnell Tuttle.
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