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Re: (meteorobs) The Existence Of Super-Fast Meteors

To all who've responded so far...

Good to see a healthy response to this new topic.  So far we've opened up
the possiblities that these "hypervelocity meteors" are perhaps coplanar
cosmic ray events or extra-solar particles.  I'm hoping that enough data can
be collected that will remove any doubt of their existance and be a new
discovery for us to research.  Unfortunately that's scientific advocacy so I
also have to be on the lookout for data that will disprove the existance of
extra-solar particles just to keep it fair.

I'll check Matthew Collier's idea of masking the chip.  With as many clouds
as we have drift in and out, I'll probably get a flash that is superimposed
over a cloud one day that should prove the "coplanar CR" theory.

I wonder, my rig doesn't just consist of a CCD staring at the sky through a
wide angle lens.  We're using some old 2nd and 3rd Gen image intensifiers to
actually image the meteors and this is then recorded with old-timey
surveillance cameras that don't have anywhere near the gain of the newer PC
class cameras.  I wonder if these old tubes are more or less subceptable to
CR streaking events.

All that exercizes the data that's recorded on videotape, but what about the
stuff we're seeing?  I've witnessed them, others have seen them too.  A
coplanar CR event on the human retina.  Hmmm.  Possible, but wouldn't we be
seeing these things all the time?  I see phosgenes with my eyes closed but
no hypervelocity meteor phenomenon.

It's going to be tricky; to keep one's eye peeled for extremely fast events
well into the wee hours of the morning and yet be immune to the tricks the
mind plays on you.

I think they exist.  There's just too much stuff flying around not only
between stars but between galaxies.  It's not all void.  Every time a star
goes nova or supernova, there's billions of tons of aerosols cast off in all
directions.  Not all of that stuff hangs around in the protostellar nebula
waiting for star formation.  I'm sure some of it comes our way, pretty fast
too.

Some of the brains I've mentioned this phenomenon to have mumbled things
about supermassive particles, singularities and relativistic wave packets.
Don't ask me what that all means but it sounds like there's still whole
bunches of things left to discover.

----- Original Message -----
From: "Chris Crawford" <chriscrawford@wavedot net>
To: <meteorobs@atmob.org>
Sent: Wednesday, July 03, 2002 11:26 AM
Subject: Re: (meteorobs) The Existence Of Super-Fast Meteors


> We can do some rough estimates based on the data you show. If a meteor
moved
> five degrees in one frame, that's an angular velocity of 150 degrees per
> second. Assume that it was at an altitude of 100 km and on your zenith;
that
> would imply a linear velocity (assuming it was a grazer) of about 250
> km/sec. Of course, if it wasn't grazing, it could be going a lot slower.
But
> a 250 km/sec velocity is way above parabolic velocity -- no way is this
> thing in orbit around the sun. That in turn implies that we cannot assume
> any kind of association with any other meteors. In other words, these
> meteors should not show any commonalities; they should go in random
> directions. They should also have random attack angles, show up any time
of
> the year. With these high entry velocities, they're must less massive than
> regular meteors. All in all, I'm skeptical that we're seeing meteors here;
> if these observations were explainable as tiny objects hitting the
> atmosphere, we'd expect to see all sorts of variations. But it certainly
is
> a mystery.
>
> Chris
>
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