The commander of Expedition 53 (the 53rd expedition to the International Space Station), NASA astronaut Randy “Komrade” Bresnik has published a breathtakingly beautiful video on his Twitter account. The video shows the International Space Station (ISS) night pass from Seattle down to Baja. What’s more, you can even see a meteor in the video, at the 30th second!

International Space Station night pass from Seattle down to Baja, Video by the NASA astronaut Randy Bresnik.

Bresnik wrote “Beautiful coastal lights from Seattle down to Baja – if you live on the west coast of North America you are probably in this video! Make a wish on the shooting star, seen in the upper right at about 30 seconds”.

What is a meteor?

If a meteoroid, a small rocky or metallic body in outer space, enters the Earth’s atmosphere and completely burns, then its called a meteor. Meteors typically become visible when they are about 100 km above sea level.

This phenomenon is also called “shooting star”, but it’s not a star at all. It’s just a piece of rock.

Astronomers call the brightest meteors “bolides”, and if it’s super bright, then it’s (you guessed it) superbolide.

If a meteor is big enough to not completely burn while passing through the atmosphere and reaches the surface of the Earth, then it becomes a meteorite.

Sources

M. Özgür Nevres

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