SkyCaramba

The most famous meteor shower--the Leonids--happens in November. Astronomers never used to be interested in meteors. Then one morning, there was a Leonid meteor shower so intense, it terrified! And it taught. Astronomers learned that meteors are, in fact, astronomical phenomena. They have a relationship with comets.

Jupiter goes after Saturn before their best conjunction in almost 400 years. Mars “swims” with the fishes. Venus and Mercury delight in the morning sky. The Leonid meteors are due for their annual show, but how great will the show be? The month ends with a penumbral eclipse. And maybe we get to see a comet in small telescopes this month.

Venus and Mercury will go through perihelion--their closest points to the sun--just days apart. The timing is a coincidence. But here's why planets have perihelia. Also, you might have heard that besides happening on Halloween, this week's full moon is called a blue moon. That term is popular now because of a mistake in a magazine in the 1940s.

Superior and inferior don't mean better than and worse than when we're talking about astronomical events. Find out what it means when one of the inner planets is at inferior conjunction like Mercury will be soon. And watch the moon pass Jupiter and Saturn this week. The two planets are getting closer to each other until their very close call in December.

Jupiter and Saturn are close together in the evening sky and getting closer. In just a couple months, they'll be the closest they've been in nearly four centuries. You can see this great conjunction for yourself. And with modern technology, you can experience great conjunctions of long ago or a long time from now.

Mars is at opposition on October 14. This happens every two years and provides a good view of the red planet, because it's up all night and it's closest to Earth. We know what we're looking at when we see Mars now. But something an astronomer thought he saw during the opposition of 1877 and someone else's mistake translating his writings got some people thinking there were intelligent beings there.

How often do Halloween full moons happen? Listen to find out that and why the answer is slightly more complicated than you might think.