Friday, November 20, 2009

APOD 2.3

Meteor between the Clouds
http://apod.nasa.gov/apod/ap091120.html

This is a picture of a meteor in South African skies on November 15. The meteor was likely part of the Leonid shower. This meteor shower occurs annually and originates from the Tempel-Tuttle comet in the constellation Leo. Material released from the comet is visible from Earth because the comet’s orbit intersects Earth’s. The meteor captured had a very long tail, and happened to pass between the Large and Small Magellanic Clouds, which are irregular dwarf galaxies that may orbit the Milky Way.


No comments:

Post a Comment