On breaking up, however, they produce a fleeting trail of clouds of water vapor. Traces of these transient, extremely high altitude clouds can be detected by down looking spacecraft designed to monitor the near-Earth environment. The suspected trail of one such cosmic snowball vaporizing over the Atlantic Ocean and Western Europe at an altitude of 5,000 to 15,000 miles is seen above. A map has been added as a background for location reference. If continuous over the history of the Earth's formation, this relatively gentle cosmic snow shower would have been a major source of water for Earth's present life-nurturing oceans and possibly even a source of simple organic compounds.
Specific rights apply .