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Here are some pictures of meteors. You can turn any of these images into your computer desktop wallpaper. Just click on an image to enlarge it, and then right-click and choose “Set as Desktop Background”.
Orionid Meteor Shower
Here’s an image of the Orionids meteor shower that happened in October 2009 as seen from the skies of Alabama. The Orionids meteor shower is said to come from the debris of the Halley’s Comet.
Stony Meteorite
This is an image of a stony meteorite that was discovered in Antarctica. Meteorites are meteors or any objects from space that have fallen to the earth after surviving the impact with the earth’s atmosphere.
Meteors and Aurora
This is an image of the Quadrantid meteor shower and the aurora. This image was obtained from the Quadrantid’s Multi-Instrument Aircraft Campaign (MAC) flying aboard NASA’s DC-8 aircraft on January 4, 2008. This recent meteor shower was able to generate more than 100 meteors per hour.
Meteor Search by Spirit, Sol 668
Here’s a composite image of the Martian sky as a result of nine 60-second exposures captured by the panoramic camera onboard Spirit during night hours of sol 668 (Nov. 18, 2005). This image was taken during the predicted meteor shower in Mars.
Meteor Outburst
This is an image of the Alpha-Monocerotid meteor shower that happened in 1995. This outburst can be so strong and can generate up to 100 meteors per hour.
We have written many articles about volcanoes for Universe Today. Here’s an article about Meteors, and here’s an article about the differences between an asteroid and a meteor.
If you’d like more info about meteors, check out NASA’s Solar System Exploration Homepage, and here’s a link to NASA’s Solar System Simulator.
We’ve also recorded related episodes of Astronomy Cast about meteor showers. Listen here, Episode 8: Meteor Showers. Yes, the sky is falling.
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