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Re: Cometary meteoroids landing on sea?


In a message dated 98-07-11 10:23:06 EDT, you write:

bjorn<< 
 Comet surfaces are frosen gasses and liquids (water) - 'the dirty snowball'.
 If this material survives to the sea surface, what will happen?
 Let's also assume it is one of the smaller fireballs, so that it has achieved
a
 terminal velocity of a free fall ~200 km/h. (Perhaps also somewhat slower 
 because of the light material in this case.) This means that the meeting with
 the water will not be too hard. <<

Perhaps? But an object hitting water at 200 mph is quite violent...violent
enough to kill people.  But when this very fragile object of cometary material
meets the atmosphere at a high velocity prior to slowing down to terminal
velocity....it will be quite traumatic I would think? I don't think it would
be strong enough to withstand the stresses involved...Most likely it will
terminal burst if it reaches the lower atmosphere.

 bjorn>>Let's also assume that the material 'is on fire' in the later stage of
the
 flight,
 Not necessarily all of the fire will be extinguished because of the meeting 
 with the water body.<<

Okay...the object is at terminal velocity near 200 mph...too slow for friction
to cause it to heat up and glow. There will be no "fire" to be extinguished by
the water.

bjorn>>If it is the dark part of the day, is it possible to
 have a floating 
 glowing/burning object on the sea surface for some time - until the waves and
 melting eventually will turn out the warmth and the remains will sink and
 disappear.
  >>

I think it has three chances for this to occur...Slim, Fat and None.    :o)
George Zay

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