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(meteorobs) dark flight



I missed part of the beginning of a thread with respect to partial dark
flight of meteors, but will add the following (hopefully not
redundant).....

Based on work by Halliday et al. on the Canadian MORP fireball network it
seems that fireballs stop being luminous at a few km/s (I think the
reference is Halliday et al., 1989, Meteoritics, 24, 65 but don't have the
paper at hand as I type this). Hence the dark flight could be at speeds
sufficient for those claimed.  The actual light production mechanism of
fireballs in late flight is not terribly well understood.

This is not to be confused with terminal velocity, which is when the
meteoroid has slowed to a speed where the gravitational attraction and drag
forces are equal.  That speed is much slower, comparable to the values
George states.

Bob Hawkes
rhawkes@mtadot ca