Dramatic Draconid
Date: 08 October 2011
Copyright: ESA
This video catches the moment when a Draconid meteor exploded in Earth's atmosphere. The dramatic footage comes from a campaign to observe this meteor shower using aircraft to beat the clouds.
In 2011, astronomers had predicted an unusually high number of meteors as Earth was due to encounter particularly dense patches of the cometary detritus. Detlef Koschny, leader of the Meteor Research Group at ESA, led the Agency's involvement in a project to find out if the prediction was right. (For further details follow the link 'Watching the dragon spit fire' in the right-hand menu.)
This footage was obtained during an airborne observing campaign that was carried out on 8 October 2011. The campaign was led by Jeremie Vaubaillon (IMCCE, Paris) and Pavel Koten (Ondrejov Observatory). Jonathan McAuliffe from ESA/ESAC and Joe Zender from ESA/ESTEC were flying on the Falcon-20 aircraft to operate the cameras.