Falling Star

Popularly called as falling star, a meteor is the visible streak of light that occurs when a meteoroid (small sand to boulder sized particle of debris in the Solar System) enters the Earth’s atmosphere. When the particle is large enough a fireball will be seen, as captured in this image of northern hemisphere summer sky. Witnessing a fireball is stunning experience. These brighter-than-usual meteors are brighter than Venus (magnitude -4). As noted by the photographer “This photograph was taken besides a shelter hut on the top of Mount Norikura, in Nagano region of Japan. It was only a 30-second exposure when this big fireball scratched the sky in my view.”