Perseids from Perseus
Image Credit & Copyright:
Jakub Kuřák
Explanation:
This was a good year for the
Perseids meteor shower
. A key reason was
the Moon
was absent from lighting up
Earth's night sky
so that
more meteors
were visible than usual. Where was the Moon? It was busy
visiting the Sun
. Near the Perseids peak, the Moon moved directly in front of the Sun and created a total
solar eclipse
visible from
Greenland
and
Spain
. The
Perseids
occur when the Earth collides with a
stream of Sun-orbiting debris
cast off by
Comet Swift-Tuttle
. Perseid meteors, although typically only the size of a
sand
grain, tend to be fast and bright because Swift-Tuttle's debris orbits
the Sun
in a
direction partly opposite
Earth's orbital motion. In the
featured image
compilation, accumulated over several nights from
Jizerka
in the
Czech Republic
, the Perseids meteor streaks can be traced back to a single location on the sky -- its
radiant
in
Perseus
.