[meteorite-list] re: Images of UK contrail (not fireball)

From: Marco Langbroek <marco.langbroek_at_meteoritecentral.com>
Date: Thu Apr 22 10:28:21 2004
Message-ID: <008c01c38aac$03e149d0$fbcd86c2_at_HAL>

> Hi,
> I lived 20 years near to an airport too, jet contrails never end abrupt in
> the sky. Tom is right.

I'm sorry, but yesterday Dutch amateur astronomer Klaas Jobse posted a
picture on the Belgian Astronomy mailing list of an aircraft contrail doing
just that: stop abruptly. In fact, in the second picture you can see that
the trail has multiple interuptions. Long time meteor observer Norman McLeod
(AMS) posted this on Meteorobs yesterday regarding these breaks:

"A couple of weeks ago Joan and I went to a grocery store shortly after
sunset, when the sky was very clear. We had to watch airplane contrails for
a short while because of their sunlit beauty, about six at a time. Planes
were over the Gulf of Mexico coming and going from Florida east coast
cities. One spot had some patches of dry air, for the planes crossing the
dry air would have clean breaks in the contrails. We watched three planes
produce the same contrail breaks."

I think that covers it. I am sorry if this has interrupted anyones dreams:
but the Wales event was a contrail, not a fireball. I should like to note
that earlier in this discussion I was among those willing to think it
showed a sunlit meteoric dusttrail (but certainly not the fireball itself).
But the new image, which just shows a lot more than the zoomed picture, has
made me change my mind. And firmly. Neil Bone was right.

- Marco

PS: one of the very mind-teasing suggestions done by two British on the BBC
website, is that the glow at the end of the contrail migh result from a
military aircraft dumping fuel and then igniting it with its afterburner.
This seems to have been observed before. The other remaining option is that
the glow is a refraction phenomena similar to a 'sundog'. Both could validly
explain the glow at the end of the trail.


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Marco Langbroek

marco.langbroek_at_wanadoo.nl
meteorites_at_dmsweb.org
http://home.wanadoo.nl/marco.langbroek

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Received on Sat 04 Oct 2003 03:08:42 PM PDT