Two bright meteors streak above Earth in new video from space

A meteor shower can be a spectacular sight from dark parts of Earth's surface.

Last week, stargazers on the ground were treated to the annual Perseid meteor shower, one of the most reliable cosmic shows each year. Some of those observers even took incredible photos of Perseids streaking through the sky, but they all pale in comparison to a view of the meteor shower from space.

A new video taken by a camera on the International Space Station shows at least two bright meteors streaking through Earth's atmosphere within a few seconds of one another.

According to NASA, both meteors -- which are likely bits of ice and dust left behind by Comet Swift-Tuttle decades ago -- seem to appear and disappear above Pakistan.

The video, was captured on Aug. 10, just ahead of the Perseids' expected peak this year.

Being able to watch meteor showers from space gives scientists a distinct advantage over tools tracking them from the ground. Cloud cover and enveloping light pollution can obscure views of any meteor shower, so getting up high above the bulk of Earth's atmosphere affords scientists the ability to watch the cosmic light show with an unobstructed view.

Via Giphy

The difficult task of tracking meteors from the ground is even apparent in this video. A burst of lightning illuminates cloud cover at the very beginning of the 20-second clip. Anyone below that storm probably had no chance of seeing any of the meteors spotted from the Space Station that night.

Videos like this one, which will be used as part of the Meteor Observation on ISS (known as Meteor), will also open up new opportunities for scientists hoping to learn more about these "shooting stars" in general.

Researchers should be able to figure out what certain meteors are made of by checking out the color of light they emit when burning up in the atmosphere. This kind of measurement can help scientists learn more about the kind of object -- whether it be a comet, asteroid or something else -- that gave rise to the meteor.

“We have a pretty good understanding of composition based on meteorites we’ve collected on ground, but most meteors don’t make it to the ground,” NASA's William Stefanov, said in a statement.

“Measurements from the Meteor project can be used to relate composition back to their parent bodies. On some level, that lets us test the validity of our understanding built from meteorites collected at Earth’s surface.”