Astronomy Picture of the Day
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Each day a different image or photograph of our fascinating universe is
featured, along with a brief explanation written by a professional astronomer.
2014 August 10
A Perseid Below
Image Credit:
Ron Garan,
ISS Expedition 28 Crew,
NASA
Explanation:
Denizens of planet Earth typically watch meteor showers
by looking up.
But this
remarkable view, captured
on August 13, 2011 by astronaut
Ron Garan, caught a Perseid meteor by looking down.
From Garan's
perspective onboard the
International Space Station
orbiting at an altitude of about 380 kilometers,
the Perseid meteors streak below,
swept up dust
left from comet Swift-Tuttle heated to incandescence.
The
glowing comet dust
grains are traveling at
about 60 kilometers per
second through
the denser atmosphere around 100 kilometers above Earth's surface.
In this case, the foreshortened meteor flash is right
of frame center,
below the curving limb of the Earth and a layer of greenish
airglow, just below bright star
Arcturus.
Want to look up at a meteor shower?
You're in luck, as the 2014
Perseids meteor shower
peaks this week.
Unfortunately, the fainter meteors in this year's shower
will be hard to see in a relatively bright sky lit by the glow of a nearly full Moon.
Tomorrow's picture: approaching a space iceberg
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Authors & editors:
Robert Nemiroff
(
MTU) &
Jerry Bonnell (
UMCP)
NASA Official: Phillip Newman
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NASA /
GSFC
& Michigan Tech. U.
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