The Space View Program showcases two notable astronomical images weekly. Last week, images and two distinct events were presented: one related to space and another to Earth.
The first impressive photograph was captured by a stratospheric balloon. This record is part of the second launch of the Naos Project, conducted by Mysteries of Space. The balloon was raised to an altitude of over 33 km, departing from Conceição do Coité, in the Baiano Sertão, on the 6th.
At this altitude, the cameras can cover approximately 680 kilometers on the Earth's surface, allowing visualization in a single photo from Salvador, on the right, to the clouds over Recife, on the left. The dark sky above indicates that the balloon had already surpassed the densest layers of the atmosphere and was floating at the boundary with space.
The second image documents a very rare event: the impact of an asteroid detected in space on our planet. This visually rich composition displays the Milky Way and the desert landscape of western Australia. In the center of the image, near a luminous point in the ocean, the trail left by the asteroid CERNQ52 is visible.
This asteroid was identified by the Catalina Survey at the Mount Lemmon Observatory, located in Arizona, just six hours before the impact was recorded. Subsequently, CERNQ52 was named 2026 RW1 and represented the thirteenth asteroid to collide with Earth after being detected in space.