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Re: Break off point between air burst and ground impacts

In your message dated Saturday 21, February 1998 you wrote :

> That being said I want to toss out a figure I read recently.
> Stone rocks from space less that 200 meters (about 600 feet) will always
> cause an air burst and never impact the ground. 

I'm a bit surprised by this statement. Although there could be several reasons 
why meteoroids progressively fragment in the atmosphere (fissures, inclusions, 
shape, gas bubbles, etc.) it is difficult to fully model the fragmentation 
process. Other factors must be taken into account, such as entry velocity and 
angle, but I would have thought that some meteoroids of less than 200m across 
would survive.

There is a way of testing this: check the TL records. They can give an 
indication of pre-atmospheric size. Unfortunately, I have access to very few.

Of course, you could ask the author of the paper to cite his references.

-- 
Phil Bagnall
http://www.ticetboo.demon.co.uk/