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Birthday · December 16, 2017

A Wintry Shower

December 16, 2017

The story of your birthday began billions of years before calendars existed, in furnaces of light and clouds of dust.

A Wintry Shower

A little universe, just for you

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APOD published December 16, 2017. Credit: Jack Fusco. A publication-date match, not a photo taken on your date. Independent of NASA.

Behind the image

A Wintry Shower

Original APOD · December 16, 2017

Four Geminids flash through northern skies in this wintry night skyscape. The bright fireball and 3 fainter meteors were captured in a single 10 second exposure, near the peak of December's Geminid meteor shower. Reflecting the fireball's greenish light, a partially frozen Lake Edith in Alberta Canada's Jasper National Park lies in the foreground, with the Canadian Rocky Mountains ranging along the northern horizon. Of course, the glacial lake is cold even in summer. But photographer Jack Fusco reports that he experienced -9 degree C temperatures that night while enjoying one of the most active meteor showers he's ever seen.

Image credit: Jack Fusco

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