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Re: (meteorobs) Meteoroids as "dustballs" (was Re: How fast do Meteors go?)



Thank you very much Lew for the clarification.  I have only seen one of these
nebulous things in my life.

Lew Gramer wrote:

> In a separate (and very technical) thread, Robert Gardner asks:
>
> >McKinley also [refers] to "dustballs", which I presume is one of
> >these nebulous meteors... ?
>
> Actually Robert, McKinley is here referring to the theoretical idea that
> meteoroids really should NOT be thought of as "rocks in space"... Instead,
> McKinley suggests that cometary meteoroids may actually be far less dense
> and solid than anything we would call a "rock" - instead having more the
> density of water, and the consistency of dust bunnies or "stoneflakes". :>
>
> A nebulous meteor OTOH, is something occasionally seen by visual observers,
> which is only different from a "normal" meteor in that it doesn't look like
> a single linear "streak" - or a moving point of light - but rather like a
> more diffuse little "moving nebula" on the sky... No one knows what causes
> this visual impression, and so it isn't at all clear that these "nebulous"
> meteors have anything at all to do with cometary meteoroids.
>
> In fact if McKinley is right, almost ALL meteors are caused by "cosmic dust
> balls"... And when these dustbunnies hit Earth's atmosphere, the expectation
> is that they'll produce meteors visually indistinguishable from rocky ones.
>
> Clear skies,
> Lew Gramer
>
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