Starship Asterisk*

Leonids Over Monument Valley

Explanation: What's happening in the sky over Monument Valley? A meteor shower. Over the past weekend the Leonid meteor shower has been peaking. The image -- actually a composite of six exposures of about 30 seconds each -- was taken in 2001, a year when there was a much more active Leonids shower. At that time, Earth was moving through a particularly dense swarm of sand-sized debris from Comet Tempel-Tuttle, so that meteor rates approached one visible streak per second. The meteors appear parallel because they all fall to Earth from the meteor shower radiant -- a point on the sky towards the constellation of the Lion (Leo). Although the predicted peak of this year's Leonid meteor shower is over, another peak may be visible early tomorrow morning. By the way -- how many meteors can you identify in the above image?

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how many meteors can you identify? = 28

30 meteors

30

30

30 meteors

30

I got 31

I counted 31 meteors, including the very yellow, wiggly trail

31 Meteors

30

the yellow wiggly thing is not a mtereor

keyboard fail

30 meteors

30

2. I can positively identify only Fred and Wilma.

I counted 30 also.

Interesting image.

i counted 31

You guys have been had! This photo is a fake, for several reasons. The most obvious is that all the meteor paths are parallel; they would have to be 90 degrees from Leo for this to be true, yet Leo only rises a couple hours before sunrise now (thus being only 30 degrees from the horizon). Further, forget the meteors - can you identify even ONE star in the picture? NO? That's because they aren't real.

26,
not counting the two crashing planes, the lightning strike and the skyrocket.
Also not counting M65.

I see 30 meteors also

30 is right. BTW, can anyone identify this yellow cloud? It's certainly within the atmosphere...

30 leonides

30.
The smaller (maybe the further?) are non parallel.

I agree that the photo cannot be authentic. 30 perfectly parallel meteorite entries is unlikely, if not impossible.