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(meteorobs) May 7/8 Eta Aquarids; earth-grazers
Lew wrote:
>What is the maximum arclength you might expect from
>a grazing meteor - i.e., one with the radiant at or just
>below the horizon?
Slow meteoroids can have bended trajectories parallel to the Earth's surface.
You can observe this when a piece of space trash enters the atmosphere. Paths of
more than 100 degrees are usual
then. The radiant of the satellite piece has its radiant naturally at the
horizon. So would say the upper limit for a meteor under most peculiar
conditions is all-sky length. But eta-Aquarids are very fast---Earth`s gravitiy
may not bend the trajectory much. If we assume an unbended trajectory and a
minimum altitude of 50km and a maximum altitude of 100km for the grazer we get a
trajectory length of 1600 km [sqrt((Earth_radius+100)^2-(Earth_radius+50)^2)].
Seen from the observer overhead, this corresponds to 173 deg [2*arctan(800/50)],
almost all-sky. Well, this is merely theoretical, but you asked for maximum...
Best wishes, Rainer