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Credit & Copyright: Luo Hongyang
Explanation:
Comet dust rained down on planet Earth last week, streaking
through dark skies in the annual Perseid meteor shower.
The featured picture is a composite of many images taken from the same location
over the peak night of
the Perseids.
The umbrella was
not needed as a shield from meteors, since they
almost entirely
evaporate high in the
Earth's atmosphere.
Many of the component images featured
individual Perseids, while one image
featured the foreground near
Jiuquan City,
Gansu Province,
China.
The stellar background includes the central band of our
Milky Way
Galaxy, appearing nearly vertical,
as well as the planets
Jupiter and
Saturn on the left.
Although the
comet dust particles are traveling
parallel
to each other, the resulting
shower
meteors clearly seem to radiate
from a single point on the sky -- the
radiant in the
eponymous constellation
Perseus.
The image captured so long an angular field that the
curvature of the sky
is visible in the trajectory of the
Perseids.
Notable APOD Image Submissions:
Perseid
Meteor Shower 2021
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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: Perseids
Publications with words: Perseids
See also: