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Re: (meteorobs) Re: Wavy "telescopic" meteor photo
>Of course, we've all seen trai[n]s that have been distorted by
>upper atmosphere winds; but that effect appears several seconds
>or longer after the trai[n] first appears.
Believe it or not, Steve, train twisting/shearing can occur much more
rapidly - forming kinks in a meteor's persistent train so quickly that
the observer swears the meteor itself "wobbled"! I've seen this - most
prominently during the 1996 Perseids, when I logged three such trains.
But I definitely agree that it is highly unlikely that the meteor TRAIL
(the visible path taken by the meteor through our atmosphere) can ever
be seen to deviate by any appreciable distance from a straight line!
This includes "arcing" meteors as well as "wobbling" ones, I think.
My understanding of this is is based on the fact that the very SLOWEST
meteoroids we observe entering Earth's atmosphere are travelling at 11
km/s - about 25,000 miles per hour! The force required to deflect the
trajectory of such an object visibly even a degree would also (almost)
certainly be great enough to disintegrate the object itself... Higher
altitude winds are very unlikely to do this - they're "only" 200 mph!
Clear skies and lots of twisting trains!
Lew Gramer
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