{"id":557943,"date":"2026-08-03T17:31:08","date_gmt":"2026-08-03T17:31:08","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/557943\/"},"modified":"2026-08-03T17:31:08","modified_gmt":"2026-08-03T17:31:08","slug":"apod-2026-august-3-vaporizing-meteor-photobombs-the-lacerta-nebula","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/557943\/","title":{"rendered":"APOD: 2026 August 3 – Vaporizing Meteor Photobombs the Lacerta Nebula"},"content":{"rendered":"

\n\t\t\t\t\t\t\tExplanation: What’s happening to this meteor? This\u00a0bright meteor streak<\/a>\u00a0appeared and disappeared quickly during a long exposure of the\u00a0Great Lacerta Nebula<\/a>, seen faintly in red toward the center of the image. The\u00a0meteoroid<\/a>, likely a small pebble,\u00a0creates its glow<\/a>\u00a0partly by heating and exciting surrounding air in\u00a0Earth’s atmosphere<\/a>, but itself vaporizes and leaves wind-blown gas and dust with\u00a0colors<\/a>\u00a0that give clues to its composition. The featured image was captured last month from\u00a0Death Valley Observatories<\/a>\u00a0in\u00a0Nevada<\/a>,\u00a0USA<\/a>. This month, though, is particularly good for\u00a0seeing meteors<\/a>. Presently there are three<\/a> meteor<\/a> showers<\/a> ongoing, although they are currently\u00a0competing for visibility<\/a>\u00a0with the glow of a bright\u00a0gibbous Moon<\/a>. The most active of these showers, the\u00a0Perseids<\/a>, will be busiest in about 10 days — after\u00a0the Moon<\/a>\u00a0has dimmed considerably. This year, the\u00a0Perseids peak<\/a>\u00a0nearly coincides with not only a\u00a0new Moon<\/a>, but, from some locations, one that\u00a0totally eclipses<\/a>\u00a0the\u00a0Sun<\/a>.<\/p>\n

Sky Surprise: What picture did APOD feature on your birthday?<\/a>\u00a0(>1995)
Tomorrow’s picture: open space…\t\t\t\t\t\t<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"Explanation: What’s happening to this meteor? This\u00a0bright meteor streak\u00a0appeared and disappeared quickly during a long exposure of the\u00a0Great…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":557944,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[23],"tags":[271739,111,139,69,147,392],"class_list":["post-557943","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-space","tag-apod","tag-new-zealand","tag-newzealand","tag-nz","tag-science","tag-space"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/557943","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=557943"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/557943\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/557944"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=557943"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=557943"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=557943"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}