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Re: (meteorobs) Oct 20/21B 1998 fireball report
Hi, John. The "persistent train" is the stream of luminous (recombining)
ions left in the wake of the passing meteor. What you're thinking of is
the streak of light from the meteor itself, which is called the "trail".
Many meteors don't have persistent trains (or even their shorter cousins
the "wakes"). But all meteors have trails - and yes, these trails rarely
take longer than a second or so to cross the sky...
BTW, all, I read in Oepik's _Physics of Meteor Flight in the Atmosphere_
the other night, that at the time of his writing, models suggested that
no meteor slower than 30 km/s could have a train! How long did this idea
last - or is it in fact true??
Clear skies!
Lew
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