#exploding meteor

(NASA)  Milky Way and Exploding Meteor

Image Credit & Copyright: André van der Hoeven

Next weekend the Perseid Meteor Shower reaches its maximum. Grains of icy rock will streak across the sky as they evaporate during entry into Earth's atmosphere. These grains were shed from Comet Swift-Tuttle. The Perseids result from the annual crossing of the Earth through Comet Swift-Tuttle's orbit, and are typically the most active meteor shower of the year. Although it is hard to predict the level of activity in any meteor shower, in a clear dark sky an observer might see a meteor a minute. This year's Perseids peak nearly a week after full Moon, and so some faint meteors will be lost to the lunar skyglow. Meteor showers in general are best be seen from a relaxing position, away from lights. Featured here is a meteor caught exploding during the 2015 Perseids above Austria next to the central band of our Milky Way Galaxy.

Falling meteorite near Russian border injures at least 400

A meteor streaked across the sky above Russia's Ural Mountains on Friday morning, causing sharp explosions and injuring more than 400 people, many of them hurt by broken glass.

"There was panic. People had no idea what was happening. Everyone was going around to people's houses to check if they were OK," said Sergey Hametov, a resident of Chelyabinsk, about 1500 kilometres east of Moscow, the biggest city in the affected region.

"We saw a big burst of light then went outside to see what it was and we heard a really loud thundering sound," he told The Associated Press by telephone.

Fragments of the meteor fell in a thinly populated area of the Chelyabinsk region, the Emergency Ministry said in a statement. Read More

Videos: http://goo.gl/wF8cE

Reuters: http://goo.gl/qLeSD

Yahoo: http://goo.gl/lr9jN

Sky.com: http://goo.gl/4duyx