[meteorite-list] Pasamonte ("corkscrewing" meteorites)

From: Marco Langbroek <marco.langbroek_at_meteoritecentral.com>
Date: Thu Apr 22 10:22:39 2004
Message-ID: <004501c33455$9d6d5b00$74334451_at_HAL>

Steve wrote:

> Well then, if meteors cannot corkscrew what about
> those that appear to break off and change direction
> slightly in the lumionous phase?
>
> If they can do that, then corkscrewing caused by a
> flat surface spiraling in the same phase is not out of
> the question.

Hi Steve and others,

That is a good one. My first hunch would be, that fragmentation is a violent
event and that what different fragments do is more related to the explosive
fragmentation event including separation due to the formation of independant
bow shock fronts for each fragment than to their shape. At least that is
what I understand from reading in Hills & Goda, "The fragmentation of small
asteroids in the atmosphere" (Astr. J. 105, 1993). Yet, you can indeed
wonder what shape would do, although with as much as 70-90% or more of the
initial mass ablating, I think shapes for meteorites in flight are highly
transient and it would appear flight is shaping them (hence the formation of
oriented meteorites) rather than them shaping flight. That's my two cents
worth of it, but I am no expert in aerodynamics of high velocity objects,
nor the process of meteorite ablation and fragmentation. Anyone on this list
having some professional insight in this care to clear things up?

- Marco Langbroek
  Dutch Meteor Society
Received on Mon 16 Jun 2003 06:19:59 PM PDT