While He Was Asleep, Man Takes Photo Of Green Meteor

If you ask any photographer, they will likely tell you that capturing a photo like this would be considered a “once-in-a-lifetime” shot.

Prasenjeet Yadav, a photographer based in Bangalore, India, set out to capture some time lapse images to “document the urbanization” of what is called the “sky islands” of southern India on an October night in 2015.

He set his camera up in the perfect spot to take 15-second exposure photos every ten seconds for around 1,000 shots. Then, he set up a tent and slept for a few hours. When he woke up and looked at the images his camera captured, he couldn’t believe it.

Yadav ended up taking a photo of a magnificent emerald-colored meteor. At first, he wasn’t sure what it was, but astronomers confirmed it was a meteor.

He was originally there because he won a National Geographic Young Explorers grant to document the “sky islands,” but ended up getting so much more.

“I was there, and that’s what photography is all about—being there in the right place at the right time,” Yadav said, according to WIRED.

According to an Instagram post of Yadav’s page, National Geographic published the photo in 2016. Since then, he’s had many more images published!

View this post on Instagram

Two years ago, Rebecca Martin from National Geographic asked me to go and shoot these humongous ficus trees in the mountains of northeast India. Before this, I had never worked on plants/trees so it was quite challenging a project. Like all field projects, this was also quite tricky but finally glad that the work ended up in The National Geographic Magazine worldwide. Living root bridges are definitely one of the wonders of nature and human ingenuity, so it was a great opportunity to work on them and tell their stories. This piece is primarily about the photography aspect of the story and how to see one of these bridges, but for those who are more curious about these bridges, I will share a full and thorough story with a lot more photos and videos very soon. I want to start with thanking @anandavarma for being the most patient human being on this planet and also for guiding me throughout this project. @kfmoran , @rebeccaexplore, and @kaityarnall for believing in me. It was super fun to work with Julia & @shwgul for this piece. Of course, all the people who listened to me talking/cribbing for hours about this and gave constructive inputs- Priyanka Runwal, Rutuja, @khandelwal_saumya , @niruparao, Samerjeet, @gabbyrsalazar @dellavolla , @kandreas13 , @mechanicalphoto. Finally my friends back in northeast India without whom this wasn’t possible- Bahsanjeev, bahdrong, bahhali and bahearlyborn. If you want to know how these massive structures were lighted high up in the mountains at one of the wettest places on the planet for this photo, pick up the December issue of National Geographic Magazine. @insidenatgeo @natgeomagazine #meghalaya #india #ficuselastica #photography

A post shared by Prasenjeet Yadav (@prasen88) on Nov 21, 2019 at 5:57am PST

In his Instagram post, Yadav wrote that “greenish color come from a combination of the heating of oxygen around the meteor and the mix of minerals ignited as the rock enters Earth’s atmosphere.”

Check out the stunning photo of the Green Meteor below.