APOD
Fireball in the Arctic
December 25, 2017Yang Sutie
About This Image
Something very bright suddenly lit up the arctic -- what was it? The original idea was to take a series of aurora images that could be made into a time-lapse video. But when night suddenly turned into day, the astrophotographer quickly realized that he was seeing something even more spectacular. Moving through the sky -- in front of the Big Dipper no less -- was a Geminid meteor so bright it could be called a fireball. The meteor brightened and flashed for several seconds as it went. By a stroke of good fortune, the aurora camera was able to capture the whole track. Taken the night after the Geminids Meteor Shower peaked, the astrophotographer's location was near Lovozero Lake in Murmansk, Russia, just north of the Arctic Circle. Free APOD Lectures: January 5 in NYC & January 9 in DC
On This Day in Space History
On December 25, 2021, the James Webb Space Telescope (JWST) was launched, ushering in a new era of infrared astronomy.
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