Quadrantids: Meteors in Perspective
Explanation:
Meteor showers are caused by streams of solid particles,
dust size and
larger, moving as a group through space. In many cases, the orbits of
these meteor streams can be identified with the
dust tails of comets.
When the Earth passes through the streams,
the particles leave brilliant trails through the night sky as they burn
up in the atmosphere. Above is an image of a meteor shower known as
the Quadrantids.
It was made in January 1995 using
MOVIE,
a new system for making
video meteor observations.
To make the image, frames from a video tape were
computer processed and superposed to show the relative paths of
many meteors in the shower.
The meteor paths are all parallel to each other,
but the
effect of perspective causes the trails to appear to originate
from a distant
radiant point in the sky.
In contrast to the elongated meteor trails, the brighter stars of the
familiar constellation Ursa Major (the Big Dipper) are visible as points
in the lower half of the image.
Authors & editors:
Robert Nemiroff
(MTU) &
Jerry Bonnell
(USRA)
NASA Web Site Statements, Warnings,
and Disclaimers
NASA Official: Jay Norris.
Specific
rights apply.
A service of:
LHEA at
NASA /
GSFC
& Michigan Tech. U.
