Shooting Star

As seen on National Geographic News, fireballs are very bright meteors, brighter than any of the planets (magnitude -4 or greater). About one in 1,200 observed meteors becomes brighter than -5 magnitude, while only one in 12,000 reaches -8 magnitude. Here in this image a dazzling fireball (perhaps a late Perseid meteor) graze the northern sky above the monastery of Geghard, a world Heritage Site in Armenia. The church is being partially made like a hidden temple in a cave, carved out of the adjacent mountain, surrounded by magnificent towering cliffs. The monastery complex was founded in the 4th century at the site of a sacred spring inside a cave. Geghard means “the Monastery of the Spear”.