NASA is capturing meteor activity from space

 NASA is capturing meteor activity from spaceoday’s Video of the Day from NASA Science News describes the Geminids meteor shower, which peaked around 2:00 a.m. on December 14, 2018.

While this event was visible from the Earth, NASA is making it possible for the meteor shower to be viewed from space by recording HD video from inside the Window Observational Research Facility (WORF).

This footage will help scientists identify and monitor the activity of meteors.

Meteor Science Principal Investigator Tomoko Arai of the Chiba Institute of Technology in Japan explained, “Our observations focus on annual meteor showers, such as Geminids and Perseids, because their meteoroids originated from known comets or asteroids, so-called meteor showers’ parent bodies.”

“The spectral information will tell us the chemical makeup of meteoroids and of their parent bodies. This can help us understand their origin and evolution.” Web content on the mission is being kept online as historical record.

NASA is developing a first-ever robotic mission to visit a large near-Earth asteroid, collect a multi-ton boulder from its surface, and redirect it into a stable orbit around the moon. Once it’s there, astronauts will explore it and return with samples in the 2020s. NASA will choose an asteroid mass for capture with a size and mass that cannot harm the Earth, because it would burn up in the atmosphere. 

The Meteor investigation will help scientists better understand the asteroids and comets crossing Earth’s orbit and how these celestial objects have affected our planet. It also could help protect spacecraft and Earth from potential collisions with this celestial debris.

Their meteoroid orbits are based on those measured by NASA’s CAMS video camera surveillance network, and were calculated by meteor astronomer Peter Jenniskens of the SETI Institute and NASA Ames Research Center. NASA is capturing meteor activity from space as shown above in the video showing the evolution and mission that was taken place in space showing the asteroid that was considered one of the biggest

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By Chrissy Sexton, Earth.com Staff Writer

Video Credit: NASA Science News