But the story really started much earlier than tonight’s opening scene in the desert….it begins November 13, 1833.   Late that night,  insomniac Americans were greeted with a sky filled with streaks of light.  This was not just a meteor shower, but a rare event with so many meteors that it is called a “meteor storm”, so named whenever the number of meteors exceeds 1000 per hour.  That night in 1833 the number of meteors exceeded 1000 per minute!

Wow! I want to be able to imagine that…