Shooting Star Photographed From Space By NASA Astronaut Ron Garan During Perseid Meteor Shower (PHOTO)

NASA astronaut Ron Garan, who's currently aboard the International Space Station, wowed his 61,000 followers on Sunday with an incredible picture of a shooting star taken during the Perseid meteor shower. (Photo below.)

Tweeted Garan:

What a "Shooting Star" looks like #FromSpace Taken yesterday during Perseids Meteor Shower Thanks @JakeGaran 4 cam http://t.co/3TsuUnZless than a minute ago via Twitpic Favorite Retweet ReplyRon Garan
Astro_Ron

Discover Magazine's Phil Plait writes that at the time the photograph was taken (7:17 p.m. UT, or 2:17 p.m. EST) the International Space Station was above the border of Mongolia and China. According to Space.com, the ISS was about 220 miles above earth.

Garan has become a prolific space-tweeter since taking off for the ISS from Kazakhstan in April. He sent his first TwitPic in April, asking his followers to identify a landmass. He's recently tweeted pictures of Turks and Caicos, Haiti and New York.

Garan's "Shooting Star," as seen from the International Space Station:

Comments

[Namvet6871]

09:15 AM on 08/17/2011

Pretty soon as Obama wanted, we wont have NASA!

[PotholesInMyLawn]

03:13 PM on 08/17/2011

Wait a tick...are you one of those people that think the US is spending too much??
How can you want to cut spending and still have NASA wasting money on an over priced shuttle program that BUSH cut...???

But all the same... thanks for your service...

[orbitxal1]

07:04 AM on 08/17/2011

The above picture is is a small cropped area from a much larger original picture In the original a lot more of the space station can be seen and its easier to identify stars and constellations, but the meteor itself is very small. It was cropped to close in and make it bigger, easier to see. The astronaut was surely using a wide angle lens.

[timmcveighjr]

03:44 AM on 08/17/2011

looks kinda like what i can see from here.

[danceswithdata]

02:00 AM on 08/17/2011

How utterly gorgeous! What a great thing to be able to go to the ISS and take photos like this.

[Aaron Calhoun]

05:20 PM on 08/16/2011

Eh, cool picture, but hardly "incredible"....I'm somewhat of a cosmology / astroscience enthusiast, but this picture just didn't do it for me. I guess mostly cause it doesn't seem to look significantly different than a shooting star seen from Earth except for being brighter and more detailed.

Maybe if Hubble had taken the photo... ;)

[king soloman]

03:58 PM on 08/16/2011

oh gosh this is all fake we never went to space!

[Garry Carlson]

12:37 PM on 08/16/2011

That isn't any grain of sand! That looks more like a BIG rock!

[Alonzo Golden]

11:54 AM on 08/16/2011

Looks as though it's shooting off from its own energy, no long trail

[Ayesha Khan]

11:23 AM on 08/16/2011

What a Spectacular view, although its not very amazing as the Stars keep Shooting some times they are even Visible to the Naked Eye, They reach us in millions sometimes billion of Years. And when they break they open Treasures of Queries----

[orbitxal1]

10:34 AM on 08/16/2011

Looks like he got a picture of the planet Mars also. The white dot above the meteor.

[orbitxal1]

09:11 PM on 08/16/2011

An updated report is saying that the white dot above the meteor is the star Arcturus in the constellation Bootes. There seems to be some confusion here.

[wrobbins]

01:28 AM on 08/17/2011

It looks too big and red to be Arcturus. Not that I'm familiar with how stars look from space.

[craftycrow]

10:02 AM on 08/16/2011

Underwhelming. I thought it would be bigger. Oh well; must be amazing to see if from that view!

[anthonyparker80]

09:40 AM on 08/16/2011

Better him than me, every year when it comes, it seems to be overcast and raining ...this year on a full moon too...bummer

[flintonian]

06:10 AM on 08/16/2011

Hey ..... I wonder if that picture was done by computer in a Hollywood Sound Stage ????? Bet it was !!! Couldn't be real, 'cause space exploration is just a Lefty's conspiracy, and has been since the 60's.

[Melinda Kabat]

03:37 AM on 08/16/2011

Sweet pic, wish I could have seen more of the meteorite shower here on earth. I stayed up til 6 am on the 13th and I only saw about 3 meteorites :(

[colliertng]

03:37 AM on 08/16/2011

Great Job On The Photo, Ron! That's possibly a once in a Lifetime Photo! 5 Stars!