(meteorobs) Can a meteor still be glowing when it hits Earth?

Ed Totman etotman at yahoo.com
Fri Nov 4 18:17:06 EST 2005


My layman's guess is that the object only appeared to
be close by.  It was probably still in the upper
atmosphere when you saw it.  If you think about it
intuitively, a meteorite is a chunk of stone or iron,
and it has to pass through miles of cool atmosphere
before reaching the ground.  So it seems to me that
most would cool down completely before hitting the
ground.  

--- gmiller at gregmiller.net wrote:

> I was headed to my club's dark site near Curby
> Indiana on Tuesday (Nov 1) when I saw what appeared
> to be a very slow moving meteor.  It then continued
> falling below where I knew trees were, and didn't
> disappear until it passed behind a hill,  and
> wouldn't have been more than 20 ft from the ground
> at the time.
> 
> It was falling straight down about the speed of a
> raindrop.  It was blue, and about mag 2-4, and was
> about 100-200 yards away.  I didn't log the time,
> but another member of the club says he saw a
> fireball in that general direction at about 9:37p
> and was about mag -4.
> 
> I knew meteroites hit the Earth all the time, but I
> wouldn't expect them to still be glowing when they
> hit.
> ---
> Mailing list meteorobs
> meteorobs at meteorobs.org
>
http://lists.meteorobs.org/mailman/listinfo/meteorobs
> 



	
		
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