(meteorobs) Orionids in a row

Karl Antier ka.antier at wanadoo.fr
Thu Oct 18 09:58:08 EDT 2007


Dear meteor observers,

Today, there an interesting observation reported on Spaceweather.com
( http://www.spaceweather.com ) about Orionids that appeared in a row,
that is to say whith nearly exactly the same path in the sky (with very
nice photos).
And this raised questions to my mind... How is this possible ? At first
sight, I thought this could be due to paticles that had nearly exactly
the same orbit (maybe a big particle that fragmented in smaller debris?),
but thinking further, I found it was maybe not the case as :
1-  meteoroids following exactly the same orbit shouldn't appear on the 
same apparent path in the sky if they occur at distinct times (here, they
speak about dozens of minutes, I think), due to the Earth rotation, if I'm
not wrong
2- can meteoroids separated by such long space intervals (180km separated per
minute) keep exactly the same trajectory ? Has it ever been observed ?

And as anyone ever made such a sighting by the past ?
Thank you in advance for your answers !

Clear skies and great Orionids !
Karl


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