Russian meteor trail as seen from space

With all the satellites orbiting around the planet, taking images of the surface, I figured there had to be at least one that snapped a picture of the meteor that exploded over Russia this morning. Well, it looks like two of them did!

[ Related: Massive meteorite strikes Russia, leaving hundreds injured ]

Taken by the Meteosat-10 geostationary satellite, which is operated by EUMETSAT (European Organisation for the Exploitation of Meteorological Satellites), this image shows the vapour trail on the horizon.

Even better is this one snapped by Meteosat-9, from directly overhead, as the meteor plowed through the atmosphere!

[ More Geekquinox: Russian meteor explodes, rains down molten debris ]

Although the Meteosat satellites were launched with the purpose of observing meteors, it's not the ones from space that they were put there for, but the ones generated in our own atmosphere ('hydrometeors'). So this is something of a rare catch for them.

(Images courtesy: EUMETSAT/NASA Goddard)

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