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Credit & Copyright: Petr Horalek /
Institute of Physics in Opava
Explanation:
Grains
of cosmic dust
streaked through night skies in early May.
Swept up as planet Earth plowed through the
debris streams left behind by
periodic
Comet Halley,
the annual meteor shower is known as the Eta Aquarids.
This year, the Eta Aquarids peak was visually hampered by
May's bright Full Moon, though.
But early morning hours surrounding last May's shower of Halley dust were
free of moonlight interference.
In exposures recorded between
April 28 and May 8 in 2022,
this composited image
shows nearly 90 Eta Aquarid meteors streaking from the shower's
radiant in Aquarius over San Pedro de Atacama, Chile.
The central Milky Way arcs above in
the southern hemisphere's predawn skies.
The faint band of light rising from the horizon is Zodiacal light,
caused by dust scattering sunlight near our Solar System's ecliptic plane.
Along the ecliptic and entrained in the Zodiacal glow
are the bright planets
Venus, Jupiter, Mars, and Saturn.
Of course Mars itself
has recently been found to be a likely source
of the dust along the ecliptic responsible for creating
Zodiacal
light.
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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: meteor shower
Publications with words: meteor shower
See also:
- APOD: 2025 August 12 Á Perseids from Perseus
- APOD: 2025 August 2 Á Fireflies, Meteors, and Milky Way
- APOD: 2025 July 25 Á Twelve Years of Kappa Cygnids
- APOD: 2024 December 10 Á The Great Meteor Storm of 1833
- Quadrantids of the North
- APOD: 2023 December 17 Á Geminids over Chinas Nianhu Lake
- Orionids in Taurus