Accepted for publication in EOS, Transactions, American Geophysical Union 2007

(C/1911 N1) passed by the Sun, ejecting a cloud of dust particles. On September 1, 2007, Earth will encounter this 2000-year old dust, causing a meteor shower known as the Aurigids. The comet returned in 1911, after completing one orbit, but the dust travelled in slightly wider orbits and has been returning ever since, forming a trail of dust particles that usually passes just outside Earth's orbit. Earth encountered this trail of meteoroids in 1935, 1986 and 1994. Earth will again be hosed by meteoroids in 2007 when the combined gravity of our planets moves the trail back into Earth's path. A brief shower of tens of meteors will radiate from the constellation of Auriga, many as bright as the brightest stars on the sky. The Earth will be in the thick of it during the one hour centered on 04:36 a.m. PDT. The shower will be visible by the naked eye from locations in the Western United States, including Hawaii and Alaska, from Mexico, and from the Western provinces of Canada (Figure 1), a region with a population of about 150 million people. The shower is compliments of a dangerous type of comet that remains elusive. Each meteor is a message-in-a-bottle providing insight into the comet's activity at the dawn of Western civilization. Figure 1- Target Earth. Earth as seen from the perspective of the approaching dus