Explanation:
Have you ever seen a very bright meteor?
Unexpected, this year's
Taurid meteor shower resulted in
numerous reports of very
bright fireballs during the nights surrounding
Halloween.
Pictured above, a fireball that momentarily rivaled the brightness of the
full Moon was caught over
Cerro Pachon,
Chile by a
continuous sky monitor on November 1.
Several bright Taurid fireballs are identifiable on the
sky movie for that night.
The above image is a digitally rectangled version of a circular
fisheye frame
and shows the entire sky, horizon to horizon.
The bright meteor was seen swooping between the directions of the
Large and
Small Magellanic Clouds.
The band of the
Milky Way Galaxy
crosses the horizon behind the dome of the 8-meter
Gemini South Telescope.
Taurid meteor fireballs are
likely pebble sized debris left by
Comet Encke.
Over the next week the
Leonids meteor shower will peak, although they will need to be seen through the glare of a nearly full Moon.
[Disclosure: Robert Nemiroff collaborates on both the
Astronomy Picture of the Day and the Night Sky Live projects.]
