A brilliant Perseid meteor shoots across the night sky over Edlington castle in Northumberland, England in this spectacular night sky photo.
Stargazer Thomas Heaton sent this stunning image to SPACE.com on Aug. 12 during the peak of the annual Perseid meteor shower.
Each year in mid-August the Earth passes through a trail of dust left over from the Comet Swift-Tuttle. Fragments of ice and dust hit Earth’s atmosphere and burn up, creating one of the most dazzling annual meteor showers.
To see more amazing night sky photos submitted by SPACE.com readers, visit our astrophotography archive.
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![A time-sequence composite of the August 21, 2017 total solar eclipse In this case, time runs from left to right, from the last filtered partial phases shot, through unfiltered shots of the rapidly changing last glimmer of sunlight disappearing behind the advancing Moon at “Second Contact,” forming “Baily’s Beads, to totality at centre] The sequence continues at right with the Sun emerging from behind the Moon in a rapid sequence at “Third Contact,” followed by two post-totality filtered partials to bookend the total eclipse images The C3 limb had a beautiful array of pink prominences.](https://cdn.mos.cms.futurecdn.net/o3egecNDBubCJmmEbLT3Db-1280-80.jpg.webp)
