Astronaut Matthew Dominick has captured the moment a meteor collided with the Earth’s atmosphere, creating a huge flash of light.
Take a look out your window wherever you work and it most likely looks like a trash-filled alley behind a fast food restaurant in comparison to the view astronauts get aboard the International Space Station (ISS). As well as the everyday beauty of Earth, from that vantage point astronauts have photographed and filmed everything from red sprites and “space angels” to, somewhat disconcerting, giant skulls.
On Monday, Dominick was able to catch a very rare sight: A bolide meteor hitting the Earth’s atmosphere.
When objects fall into our atmosphere, they are slowed and heated by frictional forces.
“In front of it, a bow shock develops where atmospheric gases are compressed and heated,” NASA explains. “Some of this energy is radiated to the object causing it to ablate, and in most cases, to break apart.”
Bolides, while they may look pretty threatening and ominous from above, are generally the term we apply to very bright meteors as they enter our atmosphere.
“Bolides, very bright meteors that can even be seen in daylight, are a regular occurrence – on the order of several dozen times per year – that result when our planet is impacted by asteroids too small to reach the ground but large enough to explode upon impact with Earth’s atmosphere,” NASA wrote.
Though they happen fairly frequently and usually pose no danger, they’re a pretty spectacular sight, and one that Dominick was lucky to capture as he zips along overhead at 28,000 kilometers per hour (17,500 miles per hour).
