New Time-Lapsed Vid: Here‘s What What It Looks Like When Meteors Slam Into Earth’s Atmosphere
- Posted on May 25, 2012 at 12:31pm by
Liz Klimas
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View from the International Space Station as meteors enter Earth's atmosphere. (Image: NASA video screenshot)
We’ve done several stories of meteorites caught on camera streaking across the sky as they fall to Earth or rare finds of the space rocks worth $20,000. But here’s a new one: video of a meteor shower before the rocks ever enter Earth’s atmosphere.
(Related: Missed the weekend’s meteor shower? Catch the shooting stars here)
NASA astronaut Don Pettit on the International Space Station whipped out his camera to take photos of the April Lyrid meteor shower as seen from space.
NASA describes the blur at the bottom right of this image as a probable meteor taken during a 6-second exposure. (Photo: Don Pettit/NASA)
NASA describes the footage as “revealing breathtaking images of Earth at night with meteors ablating — or burning up — in the atmosphere.” Check out the time-lapsed video:
What are those “brilliant purplish-white bubbles of light” — as described by Space.com? According to NASA, it’s lightning.
[H/T Huffington Post]
This story has been updated for clarification.
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blackwingA520
Posted on May 28, 2012 at 9:36amIt’s a shame nowadays that there are so many city lights and that it is hard to get a good look at space at night. a lot of the stars and galaxy’s are hard to see now.
Report Post »WyoSagebrush
Posted on May 29, 2012 at 11:18amCome to Wyoming, you can see plenty of stars and such. You just gotta get out of the city.
Report Post »blair152
Posted on May 27, 2012 at 5:17pmNice. I’m impressed.
Report Post »liberalescheisskopf
Posted on May 27, 2012 at 4:15pmand the green arc seen at the bottom is aurora….
Report Post »AStepBack
Posted on May 27, 2012 at 2:02pmThe yellowish streaks in the video are city lights. The meteor streaks are very thin and white. They appear too quickly to really see or appreciate in the video. Those who think the yellow streaks are meteors must think it’s the end of the world. Too bad they didn’t explain this better so as not to frighten people…
Report Post »POET
Posted on May 27, 2012 at 11:01amYep, Time to move again , This Ball’s HOA Sucks
Report Post »Rollo2
Posted on May 26, 2012 at 6:52pmI’ve still not received an answer to my question.
Report Post »Rollo2
Posted on May 26, 2012 at 4:33pm“Your comment may take a few minutes to appear on the site.”
Like 30 minutes or so?
Report Post »The-Monk
Posted on May 26, 2012 at 4:51pm@Rollo2
If you change the “Order By” (AT THE TOP OF THE POSTS and not the bottom) from newest to oldest and then back from oldest to newest the site refreshes faster.
Hope this helps. : )
Report Post »Rollo2
Posted on May 26, 2012 at 5:13pmT-Monk,
Thanks, but that delay is just a minor irritation. It’s like driving behind someone who brakes and puts on their left turn signal at EVERY intersection during rush hour!
Every once in a while, I have to blow the horn and holler out, “If you’re lost, just get out of the way and make the call!!
Report Post »Rollo2
Posted on May 26, 2012 at 4:11pmI used to fly over North Fl in the early spring, at night. The first time I saw cloud to ground strikes, I was puzzled, but then a few minutes later I saw some cloud to cloud, and I realized immediately what I was seeing. The awesome power of nature (and the glory of Gods creation)cannot be denied when you witness many naturally concurring arcs of electricity traversing 25 or 30 miles of air, so quickly that if you blink, you will miss it!
Report Post »Rollo2
Posted on May 26, 2012 at 10:19amSo, how does a time lapsed photo wind up with a stationary star map (complete with constellations drawn in and labeled) as a background?
Report Post »Photo credited to Don Pettit/ NASA
Ballot_Box_Revolution
Posted on May 26, 2012 at 1:38pmThat is not in the video….clearly you didn’t watch the time lapse video….
That being said, if what i think they are calling meteors impacting the earths atmosphere….looks more like lightning strikes to me.
Report Post »Rollo2
Posted on May 26, 2012 at 3:46pmBBR, actually, I did watch the video, I looked at the picture, it is captioned, “NASA describes the blur at the bottom right of this image as a probable meteor taken during a 6-second exposure. (Photo: Don Pettit/NASA)”
Now, do I need to repeat the question you were responding to?
Report Post »Smoovious
Posted on May 27, 2012 at 5:47pmBecause things that are closer, appear to move past the PoV, faster, than things that are millions of light years away.
And to your other question… an image editing program, of course.
The constellations were probably super-imposed on the starfield so the viewer can tell what the orientation of the image is.
– Smoov
Report Post »GoodWill2
Posted on May 26, 2012 at 3:10amWhere are the meteors? I see only lightning and city lights.
Report Post »merik59
Posted on May 25, 2012 at 11:20pmFascinating photos. I could watch them all day. I was skeptical when I heard that lightning strikes from the ground up, but it sure looks possible in the photos. Maybe it goes both ways? I would think unharnessed electricity could do pretty much anything it wanted. All those fireballs… Sure makes me appreciate our atmosphere all that much more. Looks like most of them just skid off the surface air.
Report Post »thejackal
Posted on May 25, 2012 at 9:57pmYeah those aren’t meteors, it’s lightning. Wow! Who wrote this a third grade “science talker”. I‘m an amatuer astronomer and those ain’t meteors.
Report Post »motorcycleboy
Posted on May 25, 2012 at 7:44pmNo, LIz, it’s “lightning” not “lightening”.
That’s what happens when you import your stories from HuffPo.
Report Post »Mop
Posted on May 25, 2012 at 3:53pmi loooove Astronomy!! :)
Report Post »SurhanSurhan
Posted on May 25, 2012 at 3:05pmAllahu Akbar!
Report Post »ConservativeCanucklehead
Posted on May 25, 2012 at 3:03pmAwesome. Amazing.
Report Post »akabosan
Posted on May 25, 2012 at 2:17pmI am in my 7th decade and have never noticed l i g h t e n i n g in the sky. Except early in the morning when the sun appears in the east.
Many times, night and day I have seen l i g h t n i n g.
GB
Report Post »akabosan
Posted on May 25, 2012 at 2:13pmWow! Good thing it was lightening because that would just over come the darkness. If it was lightning that could be electrifying and maybe even shocking.
GB
Report Post »Constructionist
Posted on May 25, 2012 at 2:00pmWhen the meteors are large enough to impact the earth’s surface it looks like… Detroit.
Report Post »OhioRifleman
Posted on May 25, 2012 at 12:57pmLove the look of the lightning at a distance. Also goes to show you an interesting phenomenon about electricity: people think that electricity is a confined charge, when in reality that charge has a definable radius (as seen here) that increases in voltage (potential) as you get closer to the center of the discharge.
Report Post »lukerw
Posted on May 25, 2012 at 1:49pmDitto… I live on Lake Front… and love to watch the Lightening Dance on the water near the shore!
Report Post »Anonymous T. Irrelevant
Posted on May 25, 2012 at 2:09pm@OhioRifleman
Report Post »Hey, fellow Ohioan. I know some company was working on harnessing electricity from the atmosphere, but I haven’t heard about it in awhile. It would be awesome to be able to capture and store that energy in batteries or some other process. There is ALL kinds of free energy in the atmosphere in the form of electricity and ionic energy. I don‘t know why more green energy companies aren’t going after that, instead of unfeasible solar and wind.
Sirfoldallot
Posted on May 25, 2012 at 12:52pmIron , it’s whats 4 dinner.
Report Post »Mainer forever
Posted on May 25, 2012 at 12:37pmVery Cool!!!
Report Post »DarthMims
Posted on May 25, 2012 at 12:35pmIt’s like we are a giant bug-zapper and the meteorites are the bugs.
Report Post »GollygeeMrwilson
Posted on May 25, 2012 at 12:54pmIt really wouldn’t look much different from space if the earth cruised into a sun now, would it? We are little more than bugs to the cosmos.
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