[Prev][Next][Index][Thread]
Re: (meteorobs) Re-Double meteor
What make this thread interesting is that it's
allowing me to ask a question which I've often wondered about...
OK, lets say (theoretically) that a
dust-sized particle enters the atmosphere at 11 km/s or faster. The
atmosphere does not superheat, only the particle. Would the "flame" be
visible at dozens of miles/kilometers away?? This is not a rhetorical but
an honest question...
Kim Y.
----- Original Message -----
Sent: Tuesday, July 01, 2003 7:01
PM
Subject: Re: (meteorobs) Re-Double
meteor
In a message dated 7/1/03 2:12:33 PM Pacific Daylight Time,
ksyo@bellsouthdot net writes:
>>It doesn't seem like anything flaking off would change
the fact that you
still have an object moving through the atmosphere
super-heating the air --
i.e. plasma...therefore changes in atmospheric
density should be suspect(?)<<
Actually ionizing the air....
How often do you see a
visible train associated with a meteor? What velocities and magnitudes are
involved? I use to keep records of the percentages of trains per shower. Also
kept up with the magnitudes of a meteor that would produce a train. I was
surprised to find out that fireball magnitudes does not guarantee a visible
train...though one is probably there, but just below most peoples threshold of
perceiving one. I recall a -11 mag Capricornid with no visible trains at all.
The same goes for a lot of fireball Geminids. I tend to think that the
trains are there, but just not visible for the most part...unless there is a
high velocity meteor involved such as a Perseid or Leonid. In those cases they
would probably appear simply as meteors with intermittent bursts within a
train...and then perhaps even end in a terminal burst?
If the meteoroid is
of medium to slow velocites, I would often expect to see the meteor appear to
fade out and back in with no ionization trail between if there were some kind
of sloughing off effect.
>>Isn't what we normally see as a meteor primarily the
superheated air, not
the actual meteoroid "burning?"<<
You are probably seeing both....the meteoroid "burning up"
and air ionization. If the meteoroid didn't "burn up", we would be treated to
numerous persistent trains and getting pelted by small meteorites all the
time.
George Zay
References: