Rocket, Meteor, and
Milky Way over Thailand
From NASA’s Astronomy
Picture of the Day
Can the night sky appear
both serene and surreal? Perhaps classifiable as serene in the panoramic
image below taken February 7 are the faint lights of small towns
glowing across a dark foreground landscape of Doi
Inthanon National Park in Thailand, as well as the
numerous stars glowing across a dark background starscape.
Also visible are the
planet Venus and a band of zodiacal
light on the image left.
Unusual events are also
captured, however. First, the central band of our Milky Way Galaxy,
while usually a common sight, appears here to hover surreally above the
ground.
Next, a fortuitous
streak of a meteor was captured on the image right.
Perhaps the most unusual
component is the bright spot just to the left of the meteor. That spot is the
plume of a rising Ariane 5 rocket, launched a
few minutes before from Kourou, French Guiana.
How lucky was the
astrophotographer to capture the rocket launch in his
image? Pretty lucky -- the image was not timed to capture the rocket. Also
lucky was how photogenic -- and perhaps surreal --
the rest of the sky turned out to be.
