Look: UAE astronomy station cameras capture path of more than 3,000 meteors

The sky lit up with shooting stars as the Geminid meteor shower peaked on Thursday

The International Astronomy Centre in the UAE has captured more than 3,000 meteors this last week, as the Geminid meteor shower reached its peak.

In an X post on Sunday, the centre shared photographs of the celestial bodies captured with specialised equipment. These cameras, stationed at three different locations in the Abu Dhabi desert, automatically capture meteors as they appear in the sky. Each station contains 17 low-light-sensitive video cameras. On Wednesday night and the early hours of Thursday, the network photographed more than 1,800 meteors. On Thursday night, which is when the meteor shower peaked, more than 1,600 meteors were captured. The centre explained that Thursday night was cloudy for hours, which may explain the reduced number.

The pictures below show the path of the meteors, the yellow indicated where it started and the white indicating where the path ended.

The stations analyse and determine the path and brightness of each meteor as soon as it is photographed and send it to US space agency Nasa.