Meteoroids

A meteoroid is a small rocky or metallic body travelling through space. Meteoroids are significantly smaller than asteroids, and range in size from small grains to 1 meter-wide objects. Most meteoroids that enter earths athmosphere are fragments from comets or asteroids, whereas others are collision impact debris ejected from bodies such as the Moon or Mars.

When such an object enters the Earth’s atmosphere at a speed typically in excess of 20 km/s, aerodynamic heating produces a streak of light, both from the glowing object and the trail of glowing particles that it leaves in its wake. This phenomenon is called a meteor, or colloquially a “shooting star” or “falling star”. A series of many meteors appearing seconds or minutes apart, and appearing to originate from the same fixed point in the sky, is called a meteor shower.

Around 15,000 tonnes of meteoroids, micrometeoroids and different forms of space dust enter Earth’s atmosphere each year.

Photos is available in different formats JPG/RAW/TIFF. Some of the photos are a combination/result of the stacking of many individal photos, to increase detail and reduce noise in the results.

Bromo October 2015 Orionids Meteorite
Meteorite entering the athmosphere over the Tengger Caldera, East Java, Indonesia, during the peak of the Orionid meteor shower (20th October 2015)

 

Galactic Center Milky Way Bromo Indonesia 2015
Meteor falling over the Tengger Caldera, Indonesia on the 14th June 2015.

 

Merapi Volcano, Indonesia, hooting star, meteor
A small meteoroid enters the athmosphere. Photo captured from the top of Merapi Volcano, Central Java, Indonesia. October 2013.