[meteorite-list] Time delay: Park Forest / Mar 01 Eyewitness Report

From: MeteorHntr at aol.com <MeteorHntr_at_meteoritecentral.com>
Date: Thu, 27 Mar 2008 16:43:41 EDT
Message-ID: <c2f.2dad9a83.351d60fd_at_aol.com>

Bernd, Chris and all,

I would think that like lightning, the closer you are the brighter the flash
would seem, the louder the thunder and the closer the two would be to each
other. And if the lightning hit a tree, there might be a delay in when the
tree would fall over and hit your house.

So there should be various accurate observations from many different points
(not to mention various inaccurate observations mixed in as well.)

We noticed that most of the "oriented" Park Forest specimens we found were
in the "wrong place" and by that I mean when we were hunting in a zone where
the specimens would average 12 to 15 grams in size, if an oriented specimen
was located, it was almost always twice as big as the others in the area.

My guess is that an aerodynamic specimen might take a sharper dive like a
folded paper airplane might be want to do, and the tumbling non-oriented ones
might roll in the air on further down stream. Come to think of it, that
might explain why the 1,430 pound oriented Brenham main mass was found about a
mile back on the axis from where the 1,000 pound Brenham was found.

And speaking of the strewnfield line, one might expect that different sized
and shaped specimens could fall over a period of time, possibly a minute or
longer apart. In the case of Park Forest, I think it was determined that the
small specimens were blown 15 miles or so to the east, severely distorting
the strewnfield on the ground compared to the burning flight direction.

I am not sure how much a massive side wind might slow down the fall rate,
but it should have some effect, especially if they are blown at a 45% angle in
the dark flight descent.

Steve Arnold
Arkansas

In a message dated 3/27/2008 3:24:16 P.M. Central Daylight Time,
bernd.pauli at paulinet.de writes:
Hi Chris and List,

Chris writes: "In the end, I take almost everything
reported by witnesses with a strong dose of skepticism."

.. which can readily be supported by what these eyewitnesses had to
say with regard to the duration (in seconds) of the thunderous noise:

- all of a sudden the sky turned bright and there was a brief thunder =>
brief
- unmistakably a thunderous noise => 5 seconds
- a pretty loud thunder was to be heard for ca. 10-25 seconds => 10-25
seconds

Would a *multiple breakup* of the incoming meteoroid have a crucial "impact"
on the respective parameters of the potential fall, or, in simple words,
could a
multiple disintegration of the meteoroid help in explaining the broadly
diverging
eyewitness reports?

Cheers,

Bernd




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Received on Thu 27 Mar 2008 04:43:41 PM PDT