He just wanted to make an amazing time-lapse of the Milky Way over Ashton-Wildwood County Park, Iowa.
He ended up finally with a fireball explosion leaving behind a strange bright puff of red smoke – for more than 12 minutes!
Was it a dragon? Or the mother-ship crashing? Not at all… It is a natural phenomenon called tails. According to the American Meteor Society, meteors can develop two types of tails: glowing trains, or smoke trails. “Most trains last only a few seconds, but on rare occasions a train may last up to several minutes. A train of this duration can often be seen to change shape over time as it is blown by upper atmospheric winds”, as in the video.
Here the original Reddit post where the photograph posted Gifs of his amazing fireball discovery!
[…] meteor tail isn’t on fire. The orange glow, also known as persistent train, is produced by atoms in the Earth’s atmosphere in the path of the meteor, which emit light when […]
[…] Watch another video of a meteor smoke trail caught over Iowa! […]