A Rare Glimpse Into Deep Space: This Extraordinary Image Captures a Once-in-a-Lifetime Cosmic Event

Photographer unexpectedly captures this rare sighting

Transcript

00:00Stargazers in Missouri were pleasantly surprised when a fireball meteor that zoomed through Earth's

00:08atmosphere left a vivid multicolored tail in the night sky, something the naked human eye usually

00:13cannot see. According to NASA, this quadrantids meteor was likely cast off by the asteroid 2003

00:19EH1. Although meteors travel at extremely fast speeds, ranging from 25,000 miles per hour to

00:25160,000 miles per hour, making them visible only for a few seconds. This meteor colored the sky with

00:31a green, red, and blue tail visible to the naked eye for a few minutes after it had passed. As a

00:36meteor disintegrates, it releases ionized elements that cast vibrant colors in the sky. Nickel creates

00:40a glowing green, calcium radiates violet, and blue-green originates from magnesium. The color

00:46red is produced from the energized oxygen and nitrogen molecules in Earth's atmosphere.

00:50Astro photographer Frank Kassaj, who captured the rare light display, won NASA's Astronomy Picture

00:55of the Day award. On that particular night, he was out with his friends shooting galaxies.

00:59His capture was a happy accident. When shooting images of galaxies, Kassaj normally zooms in as

01:04much as possible. That night, however, he forgot to zoom in. I didn't even realize I had captured it

01:09on camera until I was checking back through the pictures afterwards and there it was. Kassaj said,

01:13if I had remembered to zoom in, I would not have captured the meteor, he added. Shooting stars are

01:18always a thrill to see, even more so when accompanied by a rainbow tail.