Fireball Briefly Spotted Falling to Earth in Outer Space Timelapse
A new timelapse captured by European Space Agency astronaut Paolo Nespoli from the International Space Station briefly shows a fireball falling to Earth.
The fireball can be seen as a bright flash in the upper right section of this video at about 7 seconds into the timelapse.
“Indeed it looks like a bright meteor, or fireball,” said Detlet Koschny, an expert at the European Space Agency’s Space Situational Awareness Programme, in an ESA blog post. “It’s brighter than all the stars seen in the background; only at the very end of the video before sunrise do we see something of similar brightness – I guess Venus. So, if it is a meteor then it could be a decimeter-sized object… It might be a re-entering piece of space debris, but from looking at the entry angle (using the reflection on the clouds as reference) it’s coming in at too steep an angle.”
The footage was compiled from a series of photos that were originally taken by Nespoli on November 5. Nespoli has created timelapses of Earth from outer space in the past, including a view of the Persian Gulf. Credit: European Space Agency via Storyful
