(meteorobs) Question on an interesting meteor -Enhanced Picture

[Ed Majden]

Pat:
	I believe the comments left by Chris Peterson and Dr. Jiri Borovicka  
are the correct ones.  A still image such as this one can be rather  
misleading.  It would have been better if this image was obtained by  
an image intensified video system.  You are only looking at the  
brightest parts of the train as film is not sensitive enough to  
capture the complete and fainter parts of the train.  You must  
remember that a Leonid meteoroid is entering at 72 km/sec so the  
change in altitude is considerable along the path.  It is too bad we  
do not know the actual duration of this meteor.  As Jiri pointed out,  
the trail is being distorted over 10s of seconds with winds changing  
direction at different altitudes.  You can't really see this in a  
still image.  Perhaps Peter Jennisken's NASA airborne mission team  
has video images taken during their airborne missions that would show  
what is taking place much better.
Ed Majden
Courtenay, B.C. Canada.

On 9-Sep-09, at 5:10 AM, pat_branch wrote:

> I deal with high altitude winds quite frequently and this is not a  
> wind blown train effect. There would be more dispersal, not  
> individual jetting off. There may be shears that can give you two  
> different directions in short order, but not the multiple  
> directions and reversals seen here. I still think it is more likely  
> trails of pieces breaking off or vaporizing of softer minerals when  
> heat reaches them.
>