Astronaut Ron Garan, currently on board the International Space Station, was taking pictures of our home world out the window -- and how cool is it to be able to say that? -- when he took this amazing picture of a meteor burning up in our atmosphere:
Wow! [Click to bolidenate.] How cool would it be to look down to see a falling star? He took this shot (according to the header info in the picture) on August 13 at 7:17 p.m. UT, when the ISS was above the Mongolia/China border. This was during the annual Perseid meteor shower, but that doesn't guarantee this meteor Ron saw was a Perseid. It probably was, though. For an observer on Earth, the Perseids rain down at a rate of about 60 per hour or so. You can usually see about 5 meteors per hour that are just random bits of cosmic detritus. ...
