NASA Studies Meteor Smoke Trails

Cometary bodies leave behind iron-rich olivine cosmic dust particles that NASA has been studying with a satellite instrument for over a decade.

IMAGE: A meteor lights up the sky over the top of a mountain ridge near Park City, Utah. CREDIT: NASA/Bill Dunford

We talked on last week’s What’s Up and on several previous episodes about just what makes a meteor shower. Generally, comets passing through our solar system routinely…