[meteorite-list] Shooting Star vs Witnessed Fall

From: almitt <almitt_at_meteoritecentral.com>
Date: Thu Apr 22 10:22:42 2004
Message-ID: <3EF705E2.5A83A372_at_kconline.com>

Hi Maria,

I'll chime in here. Usually a meteor event that delivers a meteorite is a brighter
fireball or bolide (a fireball that breaks apart) that is spectacular in sight and
quite blinding when it is dark or visible even during the daylight hours. The smaller
streaks you see (meteor or meteor showers) are not associate with the random fireballs
that do or can deliver material to the ground and are from the asteroid belt. Meteors
or as they are called by laymen, shooting stars, are from cometary dust particles for
the most part and are quite small like the size of a grain of sand or maybe as large
as a pea. Both Meteors and fireballs are usually quicker than say space debris which
is traveling a lot slower for the most part than the Meteoritic material coming in at
us.

Mainly beware of sudden appearance of a bright light that doesn't seem to be going up,
down, left or right and seems to increase in brightness before it extinguishes from
the slowing down by atmospheric friction, then sudden detonations as those are the
ones headed right for you!

--AL

Maria wrote:

> Yes, I do have a question. Can you guys give me some info on the visual
> differences between a normal ole shooting star and a witnessed fall?
>
> Meteorite-Madness in Michigan,
> Maria
Received on Mon 23 Jun 2003 09:51:31 AM PDT