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Credit & Copyright: Yin Hao
Explanation:
Earth's annual Geminid
meteor shower did not disappoint as
our fair planet plowed
through dust from
active asteroid 3200 Phaethon.
Captured in this
northern hemisphere
nightscape, the meteors stream away from the shower's
radiant in Gemini.
To create the image, 37 individual frames recording
meteor streaks were taken over period of 8.5 hours during the
night of December 12/13.
In the final composite they were selected and registered against
the starry sky above a radio telescope dish of
MUSER,
a solar-dedicated radio telescope array at
astronomically-named
Mingantu Station in Inner
Mongolia, China, about 400 kilometers from Beijing.
Sirius, alpha star of Canis Major, shines brightly just above
the radio dish and the Milky Way stretches toward the zenith.
Yellowish Betelgeuse is a
standout in Orion to the right of
the northen Milky Way.
The shower's radiant is at top left, high above the horizon
near Castor and
Pollux the twin stars of Gemini.
The radiant effect is due to perspective as the parallel meteor
tracks appear to converge in the distance.
Gemini's meteors enter Earth's atmosphere traveling at about 22
kilometers per second.
Submitted to APOD: Best images (so far) of the
Geminid
Meteor Shower 2017.
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NASA Web Site Statements, Warnings, and Disclaimers
NASA Official: Jay Norris. Specific rights apply.
A service of: LHEA at NASA / GSFC
& Michigan Tech. U.
Based on Astronomy Picture
Of the Day
Publications with keywords: Geminids - meteor shower
Publications with words: Geminids - meteor shower
See also: