Geminids of the South
Image Credit &
Copyright:
Fefo Bouvier
Fireflies flash along a moonlit countryside in this scene
taken on the night of December 13/14
from southern Uruguay, planet Earth.
On that night meteors fell in the partly cloudy skies above during the
annual Geminid meteor shower.
Frames recorded over a period of 1.5 hours are aligned
in the composite image made with the camera facing south.
That direction was opposite the shower's radiant
toward the north and so the
Geminid meteor streaks
appear to converge at an antiradiant below the southern horizon.
The shower's apparent radiant (and
antiradiant) is just due to
perspective though.
As Earth sweeps through the dust trail of
mysterious asteroid 3200 Phaethon,
the dust grains that create the Geminid shower meteors
are really moving along parallel tracks.
They enter Earth's atmosphere traveling at about 22 kilometers per
second.