• Heads up! 'Fireball season' hits peak this week!

    Paola-Castillo

    San Mateo College student Paola-Castillo used her cell phone to capture the Oct. 17, 2012 fireball over Northern California while stuck in traffic.

    By Joe Rao
    Space.com

    The dramatic fireball that exploded over Russia in February got many people wondering if there is any way to anticipate future dazzling meteors before they appear.

    Well, meteors not associated with an annual shower are certainly tough to predict. But there are some patterns that skywatchers can keep in mind to maximize their chances of spotting a fireball (which technically is any meteor that shines more brightly than Venus in the sky).

    For example, springtime is "fireball season," when the number of bright meteor sightings increases by as much as 30 percent, NASA experts say. And the three-day stretch this week from Tuesday to Thursday is perhaps the best time to watch for the next prospective fireball event, which might possibly even lead to the fall of a meteorite. [5 Amazing Fireballs Caught on Video]

    Over the years, some real dazzlers have been seen during this time frame. And in at least two cases, the orbits of the meteors were virtually identical, suggesting Earth might hit more such space rocks when it passes through this part of its orbit.

    A river of rubble?
    Is there perhaps a "river of rubble" orbiting the sun that is populated by rather large meteoroids?

    Unlike most of the annual meteor showers that are composed chiefly of dust and sand-sized particles — such as the Lyrids, which peaked overnight Sunday — this supposed fireball stream might be made up of objects that are considerably larger, perhaps originating in the main asteroid belt between Mars and Jupiter or perhaps being shed by the nucleus of a long-dormant comet. 

    The circumstantial evidence for such a meteor stream lies with two brilliant fireballs that appeared during the 1960s.

    One of these fireballs cast shadows over northern New Jersey on April 23, 1962. The other was seen by thousands of people over England, Wales and Northern Ireland on April 25, 1969 and also dropped a 0.6-pound (0.27 kilograms) meteorite in the town of Sprucefield, Northern Ireland.

    After enough ground observations were gathered, orbits for both objects were computed. Remarkably, the two turned out to be very similar. 

    Something to “Crow” about
    Both the New Jersey and United Kingdom meteors seemed to emanate from a spot in the sky near the constellation of Corvus (the Crow). 

    Corvus is a rather striking star pattern situated low in the southeast sky around 9 p.m. local daylight time — a little four-sided figure of fairly bright stars, like a triangle whose top has been removed by a slanting cut.

    By around midnight it appears almost due south, and by the first light of dawn it’s disappearing beyond the southwest horizon. So any brilliant fireballs traveling on a general south-to-north trajectory might be related to this supposed fireball stream, especially if they seem to come from the direction of Corvus.

    Here are three other possible candidate "Crow" meteors, all of which blazed up on the calendar date of April 25:

    April 25, 1966: This brilliant exploding meteor passed northward over New Jersey and eastern New York into Canada along a flat trajectory. Observations were analyzed by both U.S. and Canadian experts, who determined that the end point of the meteor's visible path was at an altitude of around 9 miles (15 kilometers) near Huntingdon, Quebec. Canadian astronomers B.A. McIntosh and J.A.V. Douglas noted, "The anticlimax of so spectacular an event is surely the failure to recover meteorites ... Much of the possible fall area is either sparsely populated or unfavorable terrain for recovery." They suggest that part of the meteoric mass may have come down in the rugged Adirondack Mountains, along the trajectory but before the end point.   

    April 25, 1971: A man named James A. Lewis reported that he and his wife heard a "thunder-like" sound in north-Central Wisconsin. "I thought it was lightning," Lewis wrote, "until I looked up and saw the fireball-like object hurtling northerly through the clouds. It seemed to break up about 30 degrees above the northern horizon." (As reported in Natural History Magazine, Vol. LXXX, No. 7, August-September 1971).

    April 25, 2005: A fireball was seen as far north as Portland, Maine and as far south as Long Island. A Federal Aviation Administration spokeswoman said that a number of witnesses thought the meteor was a plane crashing in Connecticut, the Associated Press reported at the time.

    Prospects for 2013
    It should be stressed that this possible fireball stream bears no relation to the annual performance of the Lyrid meteor shower. [Spectacular Lyrid Meteor Photos from 2013]

    If you do plan on watching the night sky for any prospective fireball activity this year, keep in mind that you're going to have stiff competition from a very bright moon which, unfortunately, turns full on Thursday night.

    The moon’s brilliant light will squelch the light of all but the brightest stars, but if you’re lucky enough to witness a fireball suddenly bursting forth, it should easily be seen in spite of the moonlight. 

    Also keep in mind that any potential fireball sightings are likely to be very few and very far between. This plus that bright moon might sound discouraging, but considering what some have been lucky to see in the past around this time of year, it still just might be worthwhile to spend a little time under the stars on the nights of April 23, 24 and 25. 

    You never know.

    Editor's note: If you snap a great photo dazzling fireball that you'd like to share for a possible story or image gallery, send photos, comments and your name and location to Managing Editor Tariq Malik at spacephotos@space.com.

    Joe Rao serves as an instructor and guest lecturer at New York's Hayden Planetarium. He writes about astronomy for The New York Times and other publications, and he is also an on-camera meteorologist for News 12 Westchester, N.Y. Follow us @Spacedotcom, Facebook or Google+. Originally published on Space.com.

    Copyright 2013 Space.com, a TechMediaNetwork company. All rights reserved. This material may not be published, broadcast, rewritten or redistributed.

  • A suspected meteor flash briefly transforms night to day in Argentina

    A meteor flash lit up the sky during a concert in Argentina. NBC's Brian Williams reports.

    By Alan Boyle, Science Editor, NBC News


    A suspected meteor flash wowed observers in Argentina early Sunday — and sparked memories of February's more serious blast over Russia.

    The fireball lit up the night in north and central Argentina at about 3:30 a.m. local time, according to accounts from Argentine news outlets. "The sky lit up completely for a couple of seconds and interrupted the calm in this area of Argentina," BarrioOeste.com reported. Witnesses in Catamarca, Tucuman and Santiago del Estero reported sightings.

    Twitter users were buzzing over the fireball: A widely shared amateur video showed the green streak and flash in the background of a concert setting. Britain's ITV network reported that the footage was captured in Salta as the folk music band Los Tekis performed at an outdoor venue.

    Jorge Coghlan, director of the Astronomical Observatory of Santa Fe, told La Gaceta in Tucuman that the object could have been a space rock about 20 centimeters (8 inches) in diameter that entered the atmosphere at high speed. "This object disintegrated at an altitude high enough to be seen for hundreds of miles," Coghlan said.

    Other experts estimated the diameter at 40 to 45 centimeters (15 to 18 inches).

    In comparison, the asteroid that came apart over Russia on Feb. 15 was thought to be 17 meters (55 feet) in diameter. That meteor blast created a shock wave that blew out windows and injured more than 1,000 people. No injuries were reported in the wake of the Argentine fireball.

    A suspected meteorite in Argentina was caught on camera early Sunday morning, as seen in this video.

    More about meteors:

    Alan Boyle is NBCNews.com's science editor. Connect with the Cosmic Log community by "liking" the log's Facebook page, following @b0yle on Twitter and adding the Cosmic Log page to your Google+ presence. To keep up with Cosmic Log as well as NBCNews.com's other stories about science and space, sign up for the Tech & Science newsletter, delivered to your email in-box every weekday. You can also check out "The Case for Pluto," my book about the controversial dwarf planet and the search for new worlds.

  • Reports about East Coast meteor flood in, setting off a media scramble

    An East Coast meteor put on a spectacular show on Friday. NBC's Michelle Franzen reports.

    By Alan Boyle, Science Editor, NBC News


    A Friday night flash of light in the skies over the East Coast sparked a rash of meteor sighting reports, followed by a mad dash to track down photos and videos of the event.

    The American Meteor Society logged more than 800 reports from a region ranging from  North Carolina to Washington to New York to New England to Canada. Hundreds more registered their observations on Twitter.  One Twitter user, known as @Married2TheNite, reported from New Jersey that he saw — and heard — the object pass by. "It was making almost a hissing noise as it flew brightly overhead," he wrote. "I saw it around 7:55 p.m. EDT."

    That time frame meshed with the many other reports. Some witnesses said they saw flashes of green, red and blue as the object streaked past.

    The reports were consistent with a fireball — similar to the one that flashed over Russia on Feb. 15, but much, much smaller.

    "It's not an incredibly rare event, but it is very unusual to have that many people observe it, and also it was unusually bright," Ron Dantowitz, director of the Clay Center Observatory, told NBC station WHDH-TV in Boston. "These types of meteors happen once or twice a year. The unusual thing is that it was so well observed not so long after sunset."

    Bill Cooke of NASA's Meteoroid Environmental Office told The Associated Press that the flash appeared to be "a fireball that moved roughly toward the southeast, going on visual reports."

    "Judging from the brightness, we're dealing with something as bright as the full moon," Cooke said. "The thing is probably a yard across. We basically have (had) a boulder enter the atmosphere over the Northeast."

    For a while, Twitter buzzed with tweets and retweets highlighting pictures that falsely purported to show the Friday night light — but eventually, bona fide views surfaced. The paucity of honest-to-goodness meteor shots contrasted with the wealth of dashboard videos that came to light after last month's Russian meteor blast.

    "The meteor has taught us one thing tonight," Cara Lynch tweeted, "the East Coast needs more dash cameras." 

    One of the most widely distributed videos of Friday night's flash came from someone who didn't actually see it when it happened. "I wish I would have seen it for real," said Kim Fox, a first-grade teacher from Thurmont, Md.

    This security camera footage, from Kim Fox of Thurmont, Md., shows the Friday night flash in the sky.

    Fox told NBC News that she checked her security-camera system after hearing about the meteor. At around the time that news reports said the meteor was widely sighted, she saw a bright flash on one of the camera views. She took out her mobile phone, recorded a video of the video, and posted it to her Facebook page. From there, the video went viral on the Web and on TV newscasts.

    "The phones have been ringing all night," Fox said.

    Did you see the flash? Add your sighting report to the American Meteor Society's log, and tell me about it in the comment space below. Got pictures? Feel free to post them to the Cosmic Log Facebook page.

    Update for 3:44 p.m. ET March 23: In one reference, I mistakenly placed Thurmont in New Jersey rather than Maryland. And it's WHDH, not WDHD. Sorry about that! Also, more video views of the flash have come in. Hopkins Automotive Group posted this flashy security camera video on its Facebook page. There's also this dashcam view from WUSA9 photojournalist Kurt Brooks.

    More about meteors:

    Alan Boyle is NBCNews.com's science editor. Connect with the Cosmic Log community by "liking" the log's Facebook page, following @b0yle on Twitter and adding the Cosmic Log page to your Google+ presence. To keep up with Cosmic Log as well as NBCNews.com's other stories about science and space, sign up for the Tech & Science newsletter, delivered to your email in-box every weekday. You can also check out "The Case for Pluto," my book about the controversial dwarf planet and the search for new worlds.

    This story was originally published on Sat Mar 23, 2013 12:09 AM EDT

  • Meteor lurked for thousands of years before blasting Russia, experts say

    Don Davis

    Artwork by Don Davis shows a meteor streaking over Chelyabinsk. More of Davis' art is on his website.

    By Alan Boyle, Science Editor, NBC News


    Now that they've worked out the orbital path of the meteor that blew up over Russia last month, scientists are saying that the asteroid behind the blast crossed Earth's orbit regularly for thousands of years. Two weeks ago, it looked as if the 1.1 million residents of the city of Chelyabinsk had been hit by a cosmic stroke of bad luck — but now they're talking about turning the most powerful asteroid impact in more than a century into a tourist attraction.

    The Feb. 15 aerial explosion and the shock wave it set off caused an estimated $33 million in property damage, much of it in the form of shattered windows and weakened walls. It also injured about 1,200 people, with most of them hurt by the flying glass from those windows. Authorities started the cleanup work almost immediately, while researchers rushed to figure out the scale of the explosion.

    Based on the readings from infrasound sensors stationed all over the world to monitor nuclear-weapons tests, NASA said the energy release was equivalent to 500 kilotons of TNT, or roughly 30 times the energy released by the atomic bomb dropped on Hiroshima at the end of World War II. That translated into an object about 17 meters (55 feet wide), weighing 10,000 tons. The space agency said it was the biggest cosmic impact recognized since the 1908 Tunguska asteroid blast that leveled millions of trees in Siberia.

    Less than a week after the blast, Colombian astronomers worked out a rough orbital path for the Chelyabinsk asteroid, based on an analysis of the videos captured by dashboard cameras and traffic cams in the area. On Friday, NASA produced a more definitive orbital track, based not only on the videos but also on the readings from the federal government's space sensors. The report took advantage of a recently signed agreement with the Air Force Space Command for the public release of previously hush-hush data.

    Sizing up a superbolide
    Friday's assessment is the first entry in a new NASA database for fireballs and bolide reports, which classifies the Chelyabinsk meteor as a "superbolide."

    The latest readings confirm the conclusion that the object's orbit ranged from the main asteroid belt, beyond the orbit of Mars, to well within Earth's orbit. They also show that the Chelyabinsk asteroid's approach couldn't have been detected by ground-based optical telescopes because the space rock was hidden in the sun's glare.

    P. Chodas et al. / NASA / JPL-Caltech

    An orbital diagram shows the pre-impact orbit of the asteroid that blew up over Russia on Feb. 15, based on the track of its atmospheric entry. The asteroid came at Earth from the sunward side.

    "The impactor had likely been following this orbit for many thousands of years, crossing the Earth's orbit every time on its outbound leg," NASA's Near-Earth Object Program Office said in Friday's assessment.

    The fresh readings tweaked previous estimates of the object's size and brightness as well: NASA said the meteor was 17 to 20 meters wide (55 to 65 feet wide), and reached peak brightness at an altitude of 14.5 miles (23.3 kilometers), when it was traveling at a speed of 41,760 mph (18.6 kilometers per second). There's also quite a bit of discussion about the energy release — and why the new estimate for impact energy (440 kilotons, which includes energy lost during atmospheric entry) is so much bigger than the fireball's radiated energy (90 kilotons, which applies only to the blast).

    From the get-go, astronomers have said that the Russian meteor was not connected with the close flyby of a much bigger asteroid, known as 2012 DA14, which took place later on the same day. Friday's assessment confirms that lack of a connection — not only because the two orbital paths were markedly different, but also because the two asteroids had different compositions.

    NASA said a spectral analysis of 2012 DA14, conducted by researchers at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology, suggests that the asteroid is a relatively rare carbonaceous chondrite "with abundant calcium- and aluminum-rich inclusions."

    "On the other hand, meteorite fragments being recovered from the fireball event are reported as silicate-rich ordinary chondrites, a completely different and unrelated class of meteorites," NASA said. "About 80 percent of all meteorite falls are in the ordinary chondrite category." 

    Andrei Romanov / Reuters

    A local resident shows a fragment thought to be part of a meteorite collected in a snow-covered field in the Yetkulski region, outside the city of Chelyabinsk.

    Taking pride in a superbolide
    Scientists may classify the Russian meteorites as an unremarkable kind of space rock, but they're extra-special to the folks in Chelyabinsk. For one thing, such meteorites could be worth more than their weight in gold on the collectors' market. Some have estimated their value at $2,200 per gram. For another thing, the region's residents are now talking about capitalizing on the international interest generated by the impact.

    "Space sent us a gift, and we need to make use of it," Natalia Gritsay, head of the region’s tourism department, told Bloomberg News this week. "We need our own Eiffel Tower or Statue of Liberty."

    Among the ideas being debated: building a "Meteor Disneyland" theme park that re-creates the glass-shattering event, or organizing a cosmic music and fireworks festival, or erecting a beacon-tipped pyramid at nearby Chebarkul Lake, where meteorite fragments have been found. Tourist companies are already starting to sell group tours to Chelyabinsk at $800 a person, Bloomberg News reported.

    When the meteor exploded, many of the region's residents feared that it was a plane crash, or a missile strike, or even the end of the world. Now it's starting to look as if the superbolide is the best thing to hit Chelyabinsk in years.

    “Nobody had heard about us, and now all the world knows,” the region's governor, Mikhail Yurevich, told Bloomberg News. “We can earn some dividends on that."

    Slideshow: Meteor streaks over Siberia

    Yekaterina Pustynnikova / Chelyabinsk.ru via AP

    Click through scenes from Russia's Chelyabinsk region, where a huge meteor fireball set off alarms, injured hundreds of people and caused a factory roof to collapse.

    Launch slideshow

    More about the meteor:

    Tip o' the Log to space illustrator Don Davis and Spike MacPhee.

    Alan Boyle is NBCNews.com's science editor. Connect with the Cosmic Log community by "liking" the log's Facebook page, following @b0yle on Twitter and adding the Cosmic Log page to your Google+ presence. To keep up with Cosmic Log as well as NBCNews.com's other stories about science and space, sign up for the Tech & Science newsletter, delivered to your email in-box every weekday. You can also check out "The Case for Pluto," my book about the controversial dwarf planet and the search for new worlds.

  • Fireballs flying in formation: Clues to 100-year-old mystery found

    University of Toronto Archives/Natalie McMinn

    This painting by artist and amateur astronomer Gustav Hahn depicts the meteor procession of Feb. 9, 1913, as seen in High Park, Toronto. Hahn estimated that the fireballs passed about halfway between Rigel and the Belt of Orion

    By Miriam Kramer
    Space.com

    It may be the ultimate cosmic cold case, but the 100-year-old mystery of a huge group of fireballs flying in formation through Earth's atmosphere is finally a bit closer to being solved, scientists say.

    By sifting through the archival records from the meteor procession that took place on Feb. 9, 1913, sleuthing stargazers pieced together the surprisingly large path of the rare astronomical event.

    From Canada to Brazil, observers watched as hundreds of meteors streaked across the sky, but this wasn't any ordinary annual meteor shower. Because these meteors were traveling nearly parallel to the surface of the Earth, each piece of space dust and rock stayed visible for about a minute as each burned up in Earth's atmosphere. The procession lasted for several minutes.

    "To most observers, the outstanding feature of the phenomenon was the slow, majestic motion of the bodies; and almost equally remarkable was the perfect formation which they retained," said Clarence Chant, a University of Toronto astronomer who observed the procession in 1913.

    But 100 years later, scientists were still missing a piece of the astronomical puzzle. No one knew exactly how wide-reaching the meteor procession was. [Astronomers Chase 100-Year Meteor Mystery (Photos)]

    Map courtesy Sky & Telescope

    The red dots mark locations where the meteor procession of Feb. 9, 1913, was observed. The accounts from the ships at latitudes south of the S.S. Newlands were discovered during the preparation of this article. The ground track, projected onto the rotating Earth, deviates somewhat from a great circle, with the southern part of the track shifted several degrees to the west because of the rotation of the Earth during the time of flight from Canada to the shipping lanes below the equator.

    Right after the procession, scientists put out a call in the journal Nature to find as many firsthand accounts of the event as possible. Reports trickled in from ships and countries around the world, but the varied logs put the line of sight for the procession stretching around 2,400 miles (3,862 km), from Saskatchewan, Canada to Bermuda.

    A century later, two researchers decided to reopen the case and track down even more reports detailing the rain of fireballs.

    "We have seven new accounts from ships' meteorological log books that extend the track farther than ever before," Don Olson, an astronomer at Texas State University, said in a statement. "This is the most complete map for this phenomenon that's ever been compiled. The track now goes more than 7,000 miles — that's more than a quarter of the way around the world. That's an almost unbelievable meteor event!"

    The new findings are detailed in the February issue of Sky & Telescope magazine.

    The astronomers suspect that the rare event could probably be seen even farther out into the Atlantic Ocean, but those records might be impossible to find. The last report, from a ship off the coast of Brazil, explained that fireballs could still be seen shooting through the sky as the log was entered.

    These new findings come in the wake of a month full of space rocks making news. On Feb. 15, an asteroid half the size of a football field buzzed by the Earth and on the same day a meteor exploded over Russia, creating a devastating airburst that injured 1,200 people and damaged thousands of buildings in the city of Chelyabinsk.

    Follow Miriam Kramer on Twitter @mirikramer or Space.com @Spacedotcom. We're also on Facebook and Google+. 

    Copyright 2013 Space.com, a TechMediaNetwork company. All rights reserved. This material may not be published, broadcast, rewritten or redistributed.

  • Jeff Berkes Photography

    A Lyrid meteor leaves a streak in the skies over Shenandoah National Park in Virginia on the morning of April 20.

    Looking back at the Lyrids

    By Alan Boyle, Science Editor, NBC News

    Can you spot the meteor? Last weekend's Lyrid meteor shower produced lots of memorable pictures, as you can see in SpaceWeather.com's meteor gallery. But in Jeff Berkes' photograph, taken at Shenandoah National Park in Virginia, the shooting star is just one little brushstroke in a cosmic masterpiece.

    The Milky Way's spray of stars stretches across the backdrop, and a gnarled tree stands in the spotlight that Berkes created using a technique called "light painting." It's the same technique Berkes used to great effect in last October's picture of the Orionid meteor shower.

    Berkes said last weekend's Lyrid shooting session wasn't exactly a walk in the park: "Being out that night, things got a little hairy ... literally! A black bear approached us around 11 p.m. one night, but left without any issues. ... I saw a bunch of Lyrids that night, but only captured a few faint ones with my camera. I used a Nikon D3 DSLR. It was great to view the Lyrids under a new moon and from one of my favorite national parks."

    The timing couldn't be better: This week is National Park Week, and Saturday is celebrated as Astronomy Day. You can double the celebratory spirit by going skywatching in a park this weekend. To find out what's going on in your neck of the woods, check out the Astronomical League's event listings, or check in with your local astronomy club.

    Where in the Cosmos
    Jeff Berkes' look at the Lyrids served as today's "Where in the Cosmos" picture puzzle on the Cosmic Log Facebook Page. It took only a minute or two for Nanette Broyles to spot the meteor streak and figure out that the picture was taken during the Lyrid meteor shower. To reward her quickness, I'm sending her a pair of Microsoft Research 3-D glasses, plus a 3-D picture of yours truly. Keep an eye on Facebook for the next "Where in the Cosmos" picture in a week. And if you haven't spotted the meteor yet ... look above the tree, just to the right of center.

    More meteor shots:

    Alan Boyle is msnbc.com's science editor. Connect with the Cosmic Log community by "liking" the log's Facebook page, following @b0yle on Twitter or adding Cosmic Log's Google+ page to your circle. You can also check out "The Case for Pluto," my book about the controversial dwarf planet and the search for other worlds.

  • Meteor quest turns up treasures

    (c) Jeff Berkes Photography

    This photo combines the landscape of the Florida Keys with the flash of a meteor above on the night of Jan. 3-4, at the peak of the Quadrantid meteors.

    By Alan Boyle, Science Editor, NBC News



    January is the perfect time for a road trip to Florida, and if there's a promising meteor shower to see, so much the better. That's what brought photographer Jeff Berkes down from Pennsylvania to the Florida Keys. The payoff came in the form of a stunning set of pictures showing the Quadrantid meteors at their peak.

    "The Florida Keys sounded really good in January for the Quadrantid meteor shower, but Mother Nature had the cold front follow me all the way south," Berkes wrote in his Flickr photo gallery. "The record low temperature for Key West is 41 degrees. It went down to 46, with winds around 20-30 mph near Big Pine Key this particular night on January 3rd / 4th, 2012."

    Berkes bundled up in two sweatshirts and a fleece, plus "a mad bomber hat" and winter gloves. Then he waited for the light show to begin. He wasn't disappointed.

    One picture shows twisted trees in the Keys, with a meteor flashing in the sky above. "That was captured earlier in the night, while the moon was still up," Berkes told me in an email. "It might even be just a random meteor instead of a Quadrantid meteor."

    Scientists say the Quadrantids are sparked every year on the night of Jan. 3-4, when Earth passes through the trail of cosmic grit left behind by a burnt-out comet now known as asteroid 2003 EH1. These particular meteors appear to emanate from a now-obsolete constellation known as Quadrans Muralis, or the Mural Quadrant. That's why they're known as the Quadrantids.

    This year was a particularly good year for the "Quads," in part because because the moon had set by the time the meteor shower really got going. This year's shower was reported to reach a peak ratae of roughly 80 shooting stars per hour in the wee hours of Jan. 4. Berkes benefited from a bonus: the faint glow of the zodiacal light. You can see it in the picture below:

    (c) Jeff Berkes Photography

    A green light pen was used to add "2012" as a signature to this photo of a meteor and the zodiacal light over the Florida Keys.

    "The triangular column of light you see is the zodiac lights, stretching up into the night sky before dawn," Berkes told me. "Light coming from the sun [while it's] well below the horizon is scattered by 'space dust,' making it visible in dark locations before sunrise and after sunset. It is definitely something I do not see every day."

    Berkes said he counted close to 100 meteors while he was out. He has mastered a technique called "light painting," which calls for adding illumination to a night scene during a long exposure. We featured one of his light-painting photos last fall during the Orionid meteor shower, and you can see the effect in these photo as well.

    "The '2012' in green is just another light-painting trick with a special green pen," he wrote. "The Quadrantids of 2012 were certainly better than 2011. I'm thinking it could be a sign that 2012 will be an even better year than 2011."

    I'm thinking the same... Or at least wishing it will be so.

    Check out Berkes' Flickr photostream or his Web site for additional visual treasures. You'll find more Quadrantid images at the SpaceWeather.com Web site. There could be still more night-sky sights on the way: SpaceWeather.com's Tony Phillips says a coronal mass ejection from the sun "might deliver a glancing blow to Earth's magnetic field" on Saturday, sparking enhanced auroras.

    The next big meteor show is farther out on the schedule: The Lyrids are due to reach their peak on the night of April 22-23. 

    More meteoric marvels:

    Alan Boyle is msnbc.com's science editor. Connect with the Cosmic Log community by "liking" the log's Facebook page, following @b0yle on Twitter or adding Cosmic Log's Google+ page to your circle. You can also check out "The Case for Pluto," my book about the controversial dwarf planet and the search for other worlds.

  • Meteor show sparks chills and thrills

    NBC's Brian Williams reports on the dazzling Quadrantid meteor shower.

    By Tariq Malik
    Managing editor, Space.com

    A dazzling display of "shooting stars" kicked off the 2012 skywatching season early Wednesday, thrilling amateur astronomers around the world with views of the Quadrantid meteor shower.

    Usually one of the most dependable meteor displays of the year, the Quadrantid meteor shower peaked at about 2:30 a.m. ET in a brief but eye-catching light show. Quadrantid meteors are the leftover crumbs of a shattered comet that broke apart centuries ago, NASA scientists say.

    To mark the meteor shower, Space.com invited readers to send in their photos of the event, and you answered in spades. From light-polluted cities to remote islands, skywatchers reported spotting some dazzling views of Quadrantid meteors.

    Roberto Porto

    This long-exposure photo by Roberto Porto shows the bright arcs of star trails and a bright Quadrantid meteor in the predawn sky over Tenerife in Spain's Canary Islands.

    Veterinary surgeon Roberto Porto photographed the meteor shower from the island of Tenerife in Spain's Canary Islands. The view, he said, was stupendous. [Amazing 2012 Quadrantid Meteor Shower Photos]

    On Tenerife, the Quadrantids display peaked close to sunrise (local time), "so the peak was [awash in] twilight," Porto told Space.com in an email. "Also, the weather predictions were for high clouds this night, [but] we managed to capture a couple of genuine meteors."

    Tenerife is a volcanic island and home to Tiede, the highest mountain in Spain. Porto's photos show Quadrantid meteors streaking over Tiede and other peaks, with dark rock formations setting the scene.

    Roberto Porto

    A Quadrantid meteor is seen streaking across a cloud-spattered sky with shadowy rocks in the foreground in this dazzling photo by astrophotographer Roberto Porto taken on Jan. 4, 2012 on Tenerife Island in Spain's Canary Islands during the meteor shower's peak.

    According to the skywatching website Spaceweather.com and the International Meteor Organization, this year's Quadrantid display peaked at about 80 meteors an hour.

    This reporter spotted three meteors within a 20-minute period of observing from West Orange, N.J., before the frigid winter night forced a retreat back inside. In Florida, skywatcher Richard Hay was more resilient.

    Richard Hay

    Richard Hay sent this image of a Quadrantid meteor from Florida.

    "My wife and I ventured out into the frigid 26-degree Florida night this morning to catch the shower with our own eyes and were rewarded with about 20 or so bright Quadrantids over a 90-minute period," Hay wrote in a blog post.

    In Ozark, Ark., skywatcher Brian Emfinger reported seeing several meteors that — while not especially bright — were still impressive.

    "I caught one nice Quadrantid Earthgrazer that shot across much of the sky, but it wasn't super-bright," Emfinger told Space.com in an email. "It did leave a trail that was visible for about 15 minutes." Earthgrazers are meteors that occur low on the horizon, and can sometimes light up in dazzling fireball displays.

    Jonathan Simons

    Astrophotographer Jonathan Simons took this photograph of a Quadrantid meteor in Hudson, N.Y., on Jan. 4, 2012, at 4:30 a.m. local time.

    Unlike some of the more well-known annual meteor showers, such as the Perseid and Geminid displays late in the year, the Quadrantid meteor shower's peak lasts only a few hours. The Quadrantids and Geminids originate from the asteroid 2003 EH1, which astronomers suspect was once part of a larger comet that broke into pieces several hundred years ago.

    The small space rocks that become Quadrantid meteors hit the atmosphere at speeds of about 90,000 mph and burn up about 50 miles above the Earth, creating dazzling fireballs.

    The Quadrantid meteor shower is named for the constellation Quadrans Muralis (or Mural Quadrant, which was an early astronomy tool for observing stars), a pattern first observed in 1795 by the French astronomer Jerome Lalande. Quadrans Muralis is located between the better-known constellations of Bootes the Hersdman and Draco the Dragon.

    If you snapped an amazing photo the Quadrantid meteor shower or any other skywatching sight and would like to share it with Space.com, contact managing editor Tariq Malik at  tmalik@space.com.

    You can follow Tariq Malik on Twitter  @tariqjmalik. Follow SPACE.com for the latest in space science and exploration news on Twitter  @Spacedotcom  and on  Facebook.

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