Astronomy Picture of the Day - Fireball over Cape San Blas

NASA ^ | 23 Jul, 2025 | Image Credit & Copyright: Jason Rice

[MtnClimber]

Explanation: Have you ever seen a fireball? In astronomy, a fireball is a very bright meteor -- one at least as bright as Venus and possibly brighter than even a full Moon. Fireballs are rare -- if you see one you are likely to remember it for your whole life. Physically, a fireball is a small rock that originated from an asteroid or comet that typically leaves a fading smoke trail of gas and dust as it shoots through the Earth's atmosphere. It is unlikely that any single large ground strike occurred -- much of the rock likely vaporized as it broke up into many small pieces. The featured picture was captured last week from a deadwood beach in Cape San Blas, Florida, USA.

[MtnClimber]

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For more detail go to the link and click on the image for a high definition image. You can then move the magnifying glass cursor then click to zoom in and click again to zoom out. When zoomed in you can scan by moving the side bars on the bottom and right side of the image.

[MtnClimber]

[MtnClimber]

[MtnClimber]

Pinging the APOD list

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[No name given]

Wow.

[No name given]

Cool.

[SkyDancer]

Here. :D

[telescope115]

I think it was 1989, fellow astronomy club members and myself met at our dark sky site. I had just finished setting up my scope when a bright flash made us look up. A meteor was streaking across the sky, East to West, and lit up the countryside with a bright green glow like it was daytime. It was spectacular!

Haven’t seen anything like that since. It left a smoke trail with the Milky Way as a backdrop for a good twenty minutes afterwards.

It was kind of hard to get excited about stargazing after that.