[meteorite-list] re: Mystery Surrounds Green Meteor in Australia

From: Alexander Seidel <gsac_at_meteoritecentral.com>
Date: Wed May 17 16:01:12 2006
Message-ID: <23631.1147896068_at_www069.gmx.net>

> The speed of space junk is much lower than that of meteoroids

For a decaying satellite it will take a few minutes less than 1.5 hours to
once circle the earth in a very low orbit of just a bit more than 100 km
(approximately 65 mi) height above sea level, hence a speed of something
around or little more than 7.5 km/sec (less than 5 mi/sec), which, as Marco
has pointed out, is MUCH LOWER than that of meteoroids. Decaying satellites
will cover only but a few degrees of arc per second on the observable sky,
even if going overhead, and usually be much slower in relative speed than
meteoroids coming in, well, if these don?t happen to be head-on, of
course... :-)

Alex
Berlin/Stade, Germany
Received on Wed 17 May 2006 04:01:08 PM PDT