Photographer unexpectedly captures this rare sighting
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00:00Stargazers in Missouri were pleasantly surprised when a fireball meteor that
00:07zoomed through Earth's atmosphere left a vivid multicolored tail in the night
00:10sky, something the naked human eye usually cannot see. According to NASA,
00:14this quadrantids meteor was likely cast off by the asteroid 2003 EH1. Although
00:20meteors travel at extremely fast speeds, ranging from 25,000 miles per hour to
00:25160,000 miles per hour, making them visible only for a few seconds, this
00:29meteor colored the sky with a green, red, and blue tail visible to the naked eye
00:33for a few minutes after it had passed. As a meteor disintegrates, it releases
00:37ionized elements that cast vibrant colors in the sky. Nickel creates a
00:41glowing green, calcium radiates violet, and blue-green originates from magnesium.
00:45The color red is produced from the energized oxygen and nitrogen molecules
00:49in Earth's atmosphere. Astrophotographer Frank Casage, who captured the rare
00:53light display, won NASA's Astronomy Picture of the Day Award. On that
00:56particular night, he was out with his friends shooting galaxies. His capture
01:00was a happy accident. When shooting images of galaxies, Casage normally zooms
01:04in as much as possible. That night, however, he forgot to zoom in.
01:07I didn't even realize I had captured it on camera until I was checking back
01:10through the pictures afterwards, and there it was. Casage said, if I had
01:14remembered to zoom in, I would not have captured the meteor, he added. Shooting
01:17stars are always a thrill to see, even more so when accompanied by a rainbow
01:21tail.