While millions of people will be craning their necks skyward in the predawn hours to catch a glimpse of a Leonid meteor, a team of researchers has come up with a simpler way to watch the shower: from above.

The resulting composite satellite image, released this week, shows several meteors filmed during a 48 minute period at the peak of the 1997 Leonid shower. The star background is the constellation of Aries.

Clouds in the lower left are illuminated by the glare of a full Moon. Earth's horizon runs across the middle of the composite image.

The series of images were taken with the wide-angle UVISI instrument onboard the Midcourse Space Experiment satellite (MSX). MSX is a Ballistic Missile Defense Organization project.

The image was discussed in the current issue of the journal Earth, Moon and Planets, in an article by Peter Jenniskens and David Nugent at NASA Ames Research Center, Ed Tedesco at TerraSystems, Inc., and Jayant Murthy at the Johns Hopkins University. SOURCES: NASA/ARC/the authors

Full coverage: Leonids 2002 Special Report

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