[meteorite-list] A Twisted Meteor Trail Over Tenerife

From: GeoZay at aol.com <GeoZay_at_meteoritecentral.com>
Date: Wed, 2 Jun 2010 17:52:51 EDT
Message-ID: <32f92.2f08b7f0.39382cb3_at_aol.com>

Whatever Sterling said, I agree. :O) What bothers me is that Rendtel is
a very experienced and knowledgeable meteor observer. It's almost like an
overall trick question was asked with him already knowing the answers to the
obvious questions that are gonna be tossed up. The part that Sterling
brought up where he mentions "The trail commences as straight and increasingly
acquires the "wave" in the portions of the trail that are older" is what
sticks in my mind the most to suspect wind involvement. Still I can't help
thinking that Juergen has already considered this. I wonder what is making
him think otherwise? I wonder how bright this meteor was with an indication
as to how large the meteoroid was? I'm suspecting rather small at the
moment. It would seem to me that any forces strong enuf to make the meteoroid
change direction the first time would be strong enuf for it to be destroyed.
Yet alone multiple directional changes?
GeoZay:

>>There is no 3-D to any flat image from a single
observation site. More properly, all we can say is
that the trail is "waved." Whether this is a side
view of a helix or a view of a flat wave cannot
be determined from one photograph.

Clearly, the trail commences as straight and
increasingly acquires the "wave" in the portions
of the trail that are "older," that is, have interacted
with the upper atmosphere for a longer and longer
time at the moment the photo was taken.

This clearly implies that the "wave" is induced by
a progressive interaction with the atmosphere. It
may be more of a "plasma" or electrodynamic
interaction than simple wind.

The suggestion of an irregular or wobbling or spinning
meteoroid is suspect, as material shed with varying
lateral motion components would disperse into an
irregular pattern much closer to the "head" of the
trail than what is seen here.<<
Received on Wed 02 Jun 2010 05:52:51 PM PDT