- A few days ago, the Geminid meteor shower peaked
- Take a look at the video taken by an astronaut of the European Space Agency
One of the strongest and most beautiful meteor showers this year, the Geminids, reached its peak on Friday night. People around the world shared their pictures and videos of the meteor shower on social media. The Danish astronaut, who published a breathtaking video directly from space, is no exception.
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Incredible footage from the ISS
“Most meteors typically appear colorless or white, but the Geminids have a greenish tinge,” says Bill Cooke, chief of the meteor environment office at NASA’s Marshall Space Flight Center. According to him, the green hue comes from the content of oxygen, magnesium and nickel.
While ordinary mortals were filming the meteor shower from the Earth’s surface, which is logical, European Space Agency (ESA) astronaut Andreas Mogensen got lucky and caught a meteor entering the Earth’s atmosphere from space.
“A few weeks ago I was lucky enough to capture a shooting star on video. It was a moment, so the second part of the video is in slow motion,” wrote Mogensen on the social network X (formerly Twitter). “The meteor’s path is straight, but it looks wavy because of my hand movement and the camera trying to compensate,” he added.
Look up!
A few weeks ago I was lucky enough to capture a shooting star on video. It was over in the blink of an eye, so the second part of the video shows it slowed down. The path of the meteor is straight, but it does look wonky, due to my hand movement and the camera trying to… pic.twitter.com/EvlUGAxRu0
— Andreas Mogensen (@Astro_Andreas) December 13, 2023
The most active meteor shower
The name of the Geminid swarm comes from the Latin name of the constellation Gemini, from which meteors seem to fly out throughout the swarm’s activity. In the case of the Geminids, this spot – the so-called radiant – lies to the east of the two brightest stars of the constellation: Castor and Pollux.
Meteors are slow and often quite bright, with increasing radiant height – i.e., the location in the sky from which they appear to rise – increasing in frequency above 100 meteors per hour. During the night, usually up to 1000 meteors shine in the sky. The parent body of the Geminid swarm is the planet (3200) Phaeton, apparently a former and now extinct comet
Preview photo source: Bing Image Creator (generated by AI), source: IFLScience
2023-12-17 11:15:32
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