November 23, 1998
There are stars whose light will never reach us, worlds we will never touch, mysteries we may never solve.
A Leonid Meteor Explodes
Birthday · November 23, 1998
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APOD published November 23, 1998. Full image credits are on the original APOD entry below. A publication-date match, not a photo taken on your date. Independent of NASA.
Click on the above image and watch a Leonid meteor explode. The tremendous heat generated by the collision of a small sand-bit moving at 70 kilometers/second with the Earth's upper atmosphere causes the rock-fragment to heat up, glow brightly, and disintegrate. In some cases, the meteor literally explodes leaving a visible cloud that dissipates slowly. The above image shows just such an explosion for a bright meteor from the recent Leonid Meteor Shower. Clicking on the above image will start a (4.2 Megabtye) movie of thirty 1-minute exposures showing the explosion cloud dissipate. Each movie frame, taken with the ROTSE telescope early 17 November, is 8 degrees across - 16 times the diameter of the full moon. Near the middle of the sequence, a less bright meteor moves through the field.