In today's image, we see a meteor that happened to occur at the time of the photograph. This is a small bit of material - a dust grain - that is being vaporized in Earth's upper atmosphere. In this case, the trail of the meteor happened to be pointing in the direction of Mount Vesuvius which destroyed the city of Pompeii in 79 AD.

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This Podcast is an authorized New Media Mirror Site for APOD. You can access the image and website directly at: Astronomy Picture of the Day. You can use the archive link below the image to select the photo corresponding to the date of this podcast.

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