A NASA astronaut aboard the International Space Station (ISS) has filmed an epic explosion above Earth caused by a meteor entering the planet’s atmosphere.
I showed this to a couple of friends yesterday to see what they thought. They both thought it was a meteor exploding in the atmosphere – a rather bright one called a bolide. Timelapse is slowed down to one frame per second for you to see it streaking and then exploding.
If you… pic.twitter.com/tn2KmWgnoE
— Matthew Dominick (@dominickmatthew) September 3, 2024
Matthew Dominick, while on station this week, noticed a bright turquoise-green explosion while taking timelapse footage. He slowed the video down to one frame per second to better show the event over the Nile River.
The explosion is believed to have been caused by a bolide, an extremely bright meteor that appears when an asteroid enters Earth’s atmosphere.
Dominic accidentally recorded this event, about which he wrote on social networks. He noted that he first wanted to shoot the Milky Way, but instead the bolide fell into the frame. This happened on September 2.
Here is a longer and faster frame rate version of the timelapse. I think it is interesting to compare the size of the bolide blast to other objects in view like the mediterranean, Cairo, or lightning strikes. pic.twitter.com/oQZnfAeVqg
— Matthew Dominick (@dominickmatthew) September 3, 2024
Last week, another asteroid that entered Earth’s atmosphere, 2024 RW1, was detected over the Philippines. Since it was about a meter across, it burned into the sky, causing a bright fireball to light up the sky. The event didn’t cause any damage as it didn’t reach the surface. However, the asteroid was spotted several hours before entering the atmosphere, which gave astronomers a chance to prepare for observations.
These events indicate improvements in asteroid tracking technologies that allow such collisions to be predicted in advance. This provides more opportunities to observe such rare phenomena.
According to digitaltrends.com
