Explanation:
Denizens of planet Earth watched this year's Perseid meteor shower
by looking up into the
moonlit night sky.
But this
remarkable view captured
by astronaut Ron Garan
looks down on a Perseid meteor.
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.
Out of the frame, the Sun is on the horizon beyond
one of the station's solar panel arrays at the upper right.
Seen above the meteor near the horizon is bright star
Arcturus
and a star field that includes the
constellations Bootes
and Corona
Borealis.
The image was recorded on August 13 while the space station orbited
above an area of China approximately 400 kilometers to the
northwest of Beijing.
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