Meteor above Martian Landscape

As seen on the National Geographic News in the peak night of Perseid Meteor Shower, the last quarter Moon has illuminated bizarre rock formations in the Alborz Mountains near Firouzkooh, Iran. With a dramatic desert landscape in the foreground, a Perseid meteor is streaking through sky left of the constellation Auriga. A regular celestial event in the northern hemisphere, the Perseid Meteor Shower is caused by planet Earth’s yearly passage through the dust stream cast off by comet Swift-Tuttle.