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Re: (meteorobs)subvisible meteors was Zodiacal light questions
In a message dated 98-10-23 15:41:48 EDT, you write:
Lew<<
One group of questions in the thread has confused me somewhat though: my
understanding of these phenomena was that they were due to the huge band
(or bands) of interplanetary dust found orbiting the sun - not necessarily
anywhere near the earth, and almost certainly unrelated to any meteoroid
streams which impact earth... Is that not the case?
>>
The band of material that would produce the zodiacal lights stretch out to
around Jupiter's orbit. This would mean that the earth travels thru this
band. Looking at the material that is inside the earth's orbit produces the
zodiacal lights. Looking at the material that is outside the earth's orbit
produces the Gegenschein. There are regions within the zodiacal dust that are
more concentrated due to various reasons such as paths of comets and gives the
appearance of a minor meteor stream. The dust from these thicker regions of
the zodiacal cloud produce several meteoroid streams such as the: delta-
cancrids, Virginids, Sagittarids, North Iota Aquarids, piscids, Taurids and
chi-Orionids. There are probably others but I'm not familiar with them. There
are also a lot of meteoroids from the ecliptic which is where the zodiacal
cloud resides that are simply called sporadics. This explanation could
probably use some fine tuning, but I believe this is essentially it?
George Zay
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