CWL

Raining Meteors Composite

The Geminid meteor shower has been one of the best annual sky shows in the past years.

The above image is a composite result of a full circle fisheye photo sequence taken during the several hours at the highest activity of the shower on the night of December 13-14, 2012.

The frames with meteors are stacked to show the activity and the radiant of the shower (near the top, in Gemini). In the foreground is the Teide Observatory on the high slopes of Mount Teide, Tenerife, Canary islands. — Juan Carlos Casado

Geminids at Reunion Island

Geminids Fireball

“During last night’s star observation at Korakio Oros, Pilida Corfu I was steering the beautiful dark nightsky when suddenly a Fireball so bright came up to the sky and scared me so much that my heart was beating like crazy, Spectacular moment! Luckily I have put my Canon eos 40D with the 15mm fisheye lens at right place at the right time.” — AstroVox//B.Metallinos

Year’s Best Meteor Shower Peaks This Week

Stargazers are about to get their annual celestial treat: A bright meteor shower, the Geminids, will grace skies worldwide this week, with a peak in activity on Thursday (Dec. 13).

Image: Astrophotographer Babak Tafreshi caught this Geminid meteor in 2009. by Babak Tafreshi

No telescope or binoculars are required to see the show — just use your bare eyes. The moon will set before the meteors come out to play around 10 p.m. local time, meaning the sky should be nice and dark for optimal viewing. There could be as many as 100 to 150 meteors an hour to gape at, for those patient enough to spend a few hours in a dark area and let their eyes adapt to starlight.

The Geminids, unusually among meteor showers, are the leftovers of an asteroid (most showers originate with comets). They are caused when rubble from the asteroid hits Earth’s atmosphere, lighting a path through the sky as it burns up.

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Korean Fireball

In this all-sky view made by a fish-eye lens from Korean National Observatory on Mount Sobaeksan, a dazzling fireball is captured above the eastern horizon.

Fireballs are dazzling meteors, brighter than any of the planets (magnitude -4 or brighter). About one in 1,200 observed meteors becomes brighter than -5 magnitude, while only one in 12,000 reaches -8 magnitude and brighter meteors like this are even more rare. As noted by the photographer “It was the second brightest meteor that I have ever seen. It burst twice.” — Kwon, O Chul

Orionids

Quadrantid Meteors over Mojave Desert

Meteoroids Change Atmospheres of Earth, Mars, Venus

Similarities in the upper atmospheres of the three planets may be due to meteoroids’ shedding heavy elements as they pass through

Image: 2012 Perseid Meteor Shower + ISS passage Credit: Martin Wallgren

Meteoroids streaking through the atmospheres of planets such as Earth, Mars and Venus can change these worlds’ air, in ways that researchers are just now beginning to understand.

Most planetary atmospheres are made up of simple, low-mass elements and compounds such as carbon dioxide, oxygen and nitrogen. But when a debris particle, or meteoroid, passes through, it can shed heavier, more exotic elements such as magnesium, silicon and iron.

Such elements can have a significant impact on the circulation and dynamics of winds in the atmosphere, researchers say.

“That opens up a whole new network of chemical pathways not usually there,” said Paul Withers of Boston University.

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Lighthouse and Meteor

by Jack Fusco

Named for a forgotten constellation, the Quadrantid Meteor Shower is an annual event for planet Earth’s northern hemisphere skygazers. It usually peaks briefly in the cold, early morning hours of January 4.

Off the Florida Keys by Jeff Berkes

Spectacular Photos: 1st Meteor Shower of 2012 Amazes Skywatchers

This long-exposure photo by Roberto Porto shows the bright arcs of star trails and a bright Quadrantid meteor in the predawn sky over Tenerife in Spain’s Canary Islands.

Meteors Over Jokulsarlon

Pictured above is a meteor shower over the Jokulsarlon Lake in Iceland. The image was made on the night of December 14 to 15, 2011 with a gibbous Moon, near the maximum of Geminids from 22 :30 UT. to 0:30 UT. It is a composite of 23 images. Note a very low aurora in Hercules.

Image & Summary by Stephane Vetter

Orion Rising

Credit & Copyright: Jimmy Westlake

Geminid Meteors

Copyright: Wally Pacholka

A Sky Filled with Leonids

The meteor shower is caused by the Earth plowing through a stream of sand-sized ice particles shed years ago by Comet Tempel-Tuttle. Note that the meteors can all be tracked back to a radiant in the constellation Leo, the direction from which the particles orbit the Sun.

Credit & Copyright: Chen Huang-Ming