(meteorobs) Bolide, not Perseid-- and not Bolide

[dfischer at astro.uni-bonn.de]

> Source please.

If one assumes - and this actually works sometimes :-) - that entries in
Wikipedia converge on a consensus view then we learn in
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Meteoroid#Fireball as follows:

>>The International Astronomical Union defines a fireball as "a meteor
brighter than any of the planets" (magnitude −4 or greater). The
International Meteor Organization (an amateur organization that studies
meteors) has a more rigid definition. It defines a fireball as a meteor
that would have a magnitude of −3 or brighter if seen at zenith.
This definition corrects for the greater distance between an observer
and a meteor near the horizon. For example, a meteor of magnitude
−1 at 5 degrees above the horizon would be classified as a
fireball because if the observer had been directly below the meteor it
would have appeared as magnitude −6. [...]

Fireballs reaching magnitude −14 or brighter are called bolides. The
IAU has no official definition of "bolide", and generally considers the
term synonymous with "fireball". Astronomers often use "bolide" to
identify an exceptionally bright fireball, particularly one that explodes
(sometimes called a detonating fireball). It may also be used to mean a
fireball which creates audible sounds. In the late twentieth century,
bolide has also come to mean any object that hits the Earth and explodes,
with no regard to its composition (asteroid or comet). The word bolide
comes from the Greek βολίς (bolis) which can mean
a missile or to flash. If the magnitude of a bolide reaches −17 or
brighter it is known as a superbolide.<<

So hearing sound is *not* mandatory for a fireball being a bolide, just
the brightness. Hey, I saw several bolides then during that Mongolian Rain
of Fireballs from the Leonids in 1998. References - left out here - for
bolide-related definitions direct to two books from Cambridge University
Press, so they must be true ...

Dan