NASA Astronomy Picture of the Day Collection

2001 Leonids: Meteors in Perspective

The 2001 Leonid storm was so intense that the meteor shower's [ http://liftoff.msfc…meteors/Showers.html ] radiant, the point on the sky [ http://antwrp.gsfc.…] from which the fleeting trails seemed to diverge [ http://antwrp.gsfc.…], was easy to spot. But the bits of debris that created the meteors really moved along parallel paths, following the orbit of their parent comet Tempel-Tuttle [ http://antwrp.gsfc.…]. Their apparent divergence from the shower's radiant point was simply due to perspective [ http://mathforum.or…perspect.html ] as skygazers looked [ http://www.astrosur…index.html ] toward the stream of cosmic debris. During the 2001 Leonid storm [ http://science.nasa…09oct_leonidsforecas t.htm ], while the radiant was above the horizon from SoBaekSan Observatory [ http://antwrp.gsfc.…] in South Korea, astronomer Christophe Marlot made this single time exposure recording star trail arcs and a number of meteors. Since Marlot was looking away from the cosmic debris stream, this perspective [ http://mathforum.or…sanders/TryPersp.gsp .html ] actually shows red tinged meteor trails converging toward a point below the horizon and opposite the radiant -- the Leonid shower's antiradiant [ http://antwrp.gsfc.…].

Christophe Marlot [ mailto:ccmlt@wanadoo .fr ]

meteor

2001 leonids

sobaeksan observatory

radiant

anti-radiant

Korea

Goddard Space Flight Center (GSFC)

Marshall Space Flight Center (MSFC)

http://antwrp.gsfc.…

SPD-APOD-ap021107