(meteorobs) OT -Meteorite ID & Analysis with Photos.

[stange]

Since activity appears to be slow....Interesting articles.

Photos of meteor fusion crusts with a condensed explanation:

http://www.meteorlab.com/METEORLAB2001dev/fusion/fusion.htm

Meteorite Identification with photos.

http://www4.nau.edu/meteorite/Meteorite/Book-Identification.html

A casual touching of Ram pressure, the slower gas flow zone, and the melting
surface.......

The super-hot air in front of the meteoroid is not actually in contact with
the particle. (A particle can still be referred to as a meteoroid as it
races through the atmosphere, while "meteor" is meant to describe the whole
glowing phenomenon.)

The meteoroid's quick motion sets up a shock wave in the air, like from a
supersonic airplane. The shocked air sits in front of the meteoroid, a few
centimetres away (depending on the meteoroid's size) in what's called a
standoff shock. Between the shocked air and the surface of the meteoroid is
a relatively slow-moving pocket of air.

The surface of the meteoroid melts from the heat of the compressed gas in
front of it, and the air flowing over it blows off the melted portion in a
process called ablation. The meteoroid's high velocity provides the energy
for all this heat and light, which rob it of speed. When it falls below the
speed of sound, the shock wave vanishes, the heating and ablation stop, and
the meteoroid then falls rather slowly, perhaps at a couple of hundred mph
(or a few hundred kilometres per hour).