[AZ-Observing] Re: Fireball Meteor
- From: "William Shaheen" <dmarc-noreply@xxxxxxxxxxxxx> (Redacted sender "wjshaheen" for DMARC)
- To: az-observing@xxxxxxxxxxxxx
- Date: Thu, 2 Jun 2016 22:20:35 -0400
Thank you for the constructive info, Tom. It's just that I've seen many meteor
"trains" that dissipated over time but did not form figure 8 patterns. But,
again, thank you for the positive response.
Bill
-----Original Message-----
From: Tom Polakis <tpolakis@xxxxxxx>
To: az-observing <az-observing@xxxxxxxxxxxxx>
Sent: Thu, Jun 2, 2016 7:17 pm
Subject: [AZ-Observing] Re: Fireball Meteor
---- William Shaheen <dmarc-noreply@xxxxxxxxxxxxx> wrote:
I know this is going to sound crazy (so, what else is new?), but I think the
meteor and the contrails are coincidental and unrelated. The bright flash is
typical of a meteor, which would not leave zig-zagging contrails. The
contrails presumed to be left over from the meteor were visible an hour later
and were not characteristic of a meteor trail.
Bill,
Earlier today, I was looking up whether "smoke trains" is the correct term for
the lingering display in twilight. Here's a good document at the International
Meteor Organization.
http://www.imo.net/docs/04trains.pdf
...wherein it is written:
"A large meteoroid entering the atmosphere also distributes a substantial
amount of material along its
trajectory as it ablates. This may lead to the formation of the so-called smoke
trains, which do not
emit light, and are composed of dust particles.
The second way of seeing such trains occurs in twilight (Fig. 4-1). Since smoke
trains appear below
80 kilometers altitude, they are still lit by the Sun, even in late twilight.
Consequently, they appear
bright. The conditions for the visibility of smoke trains as sunlit clouds
after sunset or before sunrise
are similar to those for noctilucent clouds."
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