A Leonid Meteor Explodes
23.11.1998

Click on the above image and watch a Leonid meteor explode. The tremendous heat generated by the collision of a small sand-bit moving at 70 kilometers/second with the Earth's upper atmosphere causes the rock-fragment to heat up, glow brightly, and disintegrate.

An Annotated Leonid
30.11.1998

The 1998 Leonids Meteor Shower was perhaps the most photographed meteor event in history. Patient observers saw bright meteors streak across dark skies every few minutes, frequently leaving fading trails stretching across the sky. High above the Anza-Borrego Desert, a meteor was photographed streaking up from the radiant constellation of the Leonids: Leo.

Twisting Meteor Train
27.11.1998

Blazing through the sky at 70 kilometers per second, 100 kilometers or so above planet Earth, many bright Leonid meteors left behind a persistent, smoke-like trail of glowing, hot, ionized gas. Twisting in high altitude winds, these trails or trains typically were visible for many minutes.

A Strange Streak Imaged in Australia
7.12.2004

Meteor experts don't think it's a meteor. Atmospheric scientists don't think it's lightning. The photographer insists that the streak and flash on the above image has not been created digitally. So what is it? Nobody is sure.

Iridium 52: Not A Meteor
22.10.1999

While hunting for meteors in the night sky above the White Mountains near Bishop, California, astrophotographer James Young instead captured this brilliant celestial apparition. Recorded near twilight on August 13, the bright streak is not the flash of a meteor trail but sunlight glinting from a satellite.

The Spectrum of A Meteor
12.08.2004

Chasing the brief flash of a meteor trail across the sky with a very large telescope is a nearly impossible task. But on May 12, 2002, astronomers got lucky, as a bright meteor chanced across the narrow slit of their spectrograph at the Paranal Observatory.

The Meteor of 1860
22.07.2010

Frederic Church (1826-1900), American landscape painter of the Hudson River School, painted what he saw in nature. And on July 20th, 1860, he saw a spectacular string of fireball meteors cross the Catskill evening sky, an extremely rare Earth-grazing meteor procession.

Night of the Perseids
14.08.2010

On the night of August 12, from moonset until dawn was a good time to see meteors. Enthusiasts watched as comet dust rained on planet Earth, streaking through dark skies during the annual Perseid Meteor Shower.

Perseid Storm
21.08.2010

Storms on the distant horizon and comet dust raining through the heavens above are combined in this alluring nightscape. The scene was recorded in the early hours of August 13 from the Keota Star Party site on the Pawnee National Grasslands of northeastern Colorado, USA.

A Twisted Meteor Trail Over Tenerife
2.06.2010

Did this meteor take a twisting path? No one is sure. Considered opinions are solicited. Meteors, usually sand sized grains that originate in comets, will typically disintegrate as they enter the Earth's atmosphere. A fast moving meteor ionizes molecules in the Earth's atmosphere that subsequently glow when they reacquire electrons.