Meteor 9-2024

I'm excited to show you a shooting star (i.e. "meteor") that I captured while doing a time lapse of my telescope tracking a nebula.

In this photo, we can also see the Milky Way, Jupiter (the brightest object to the right of the meteor), Mars (below and to the left of Jupiter), and the faint hue of the Northern Lights.

When this particular space rock entered the Earth's atmosphere and burned up, the meteoroid (small space rock) became a "meteor." The green color indicates that it was made up of magnesium. Meteors travel at around 130,000 miles per hour and essentially come to a standstill once they hit our atmosphere.

If it were to survive the journey and land somewhere, and you picked it up, you would be holding a "meteorite." Only 5% of meteors actually hit the ground.

I've been working on a video that shows the aftermath of the meteor. It left behind a very interesting "vapor trail."

Here is a full resolution photo: https://astrob.in/full/i4pj0c/0/ (click "Full Resolution" at the top right)

*Scroll down for video*

This video shows the twisting trail left behind by a meteor, about 60 miles above the Earth. It is complete luck, and chance, to capture one in such detail.

The technical term for this wispy trail is "persistent train," and is different from the tail that you often see behind a meteor.

Elements left behind from the meteor combine with ozone in the atmosphere and emit light. The length of time that the train "persists" varies, with most trains disappearing within 5 to 10 minutes.

"How rare is this?"

A 2024 research article in the Journal of Geophysical Research" studied 4,726 meteors from 2021 - 2023 and determined that 636 left a persistent train (~13.5%).

Of these 636 persistent trains, just 35 lasted longer than 15 minutes (~5.5%). The train I photographed lasted a little longer than 20 minutes...

You would therefore expect to see a persistent train like this one less than 1% of the time you are looking at a meteor. Very cool!

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