[meteorite-list] Dumb Questions About Meteors & Meteorites

From: Meteorites USA <eric_at_meteoritecentral.com>
Date: Tue, 26 Jan 2010 07:58:28 -0800
Message-ID: <4B5F1124.3040803_at_meteoritesusa.com>

Hi Robert, Sterling, Erik, Greg, Darren, ALL, Thanks for all the answers...

I wanted to include a photo in my question. We're all familiar with Mike
Hankey's now world famous PA fireball photo which just happened to catch
the fragmentation of a large meteoroid as it was breaking up. This left
many smoke trains in the air from each fragment.Now, even though no
meteorites have yet to be recovered from this, there is a possibility
there will be. But it brings up a question. This was an abnormal
fireball and rather large but I've included another photo of a smaller
Leonid meteor, with what appears to be a small smoke train emerging from
the incandescence and entering dark flight.

Take a look at this Leonid photo. As you can see after the incandescence
there's a small smoke train shooting out from the tip of the meteor. Is
that in fact the smoke train from the particle/meteoroid just before
entering dark flight? Or was this just the last bit of the meteoroid
burning up?

Leonid: http://www.meteoritesusa.com/images/Leonid_Meteor-wikipedia-cc.jpg
Leonid Closeup:
http://www.meteoritesusa.com/images/Leonid_Meteor-wikipedia-cc-2.jpg

Regards,
Eric



>> From: Meteorites USA<eric at meteoritesusa.com>
>> Subject: [meteorite-list] Dumb Questions About Meteors& Meteorites
>> To: "Meteorite-list"<meteorite-list at meteoritecentral.com>
>> Date: Monday, January 25, 2010, 9:26 PM
>> Hi Everyone,
>>
>> I'm not too sure how to broach the subject without stepping
>> on toes, so I say this will all due respect to everyone who
>> would be offended by the questions.
>>
>> I've been reading "Meteorites" by Caroline Smith, Sara
>> Russell, and Gretchen Benedix, Firefly Books, 2009. Lovely
>> book, with lots of information on meteorites, their origins,
>> and composition, with loads of illustrations and great
>> photography.
>>
>> As I was flipping through I found a mention about the total
>> weight of meteoritic material which falls on our planet
>> every year. On page 89 it states "...approximately
>> 40,000-60,000 t of extraterrestrial material lands on Earth
>> every year, the majority of which is in the form of tiny
>> dust grains usually less than 1 mm (1/25 in) in size;
>> importantly, most of this dust is believed to originate from
>> comets..."
>>
>> Doesn't this go against what science tells us about meteor
>> showers? Don't the particles and sand-grain sized particles
>> burn up in the atmosphere like science tells us they do? And
>> if they don't burn up completely why does just about every
>> text on meteors say they do? And if that the case, then how
>> is it possible to weigh something that doesn't exist,
>> anymore?
>>
>> I've read this in other places as well, some sources say
>> that there is thousands of tons to millions of tons of
>> meteoritic material landing on Earth every year. Yet...
>>
>> We all "know" that small dust to sand grain sized particles
>> burn up high in the atmosphere, and there is debate on what
>> it takes, or rather how large meteoroids must be to reach
>> the ground and become meteorites. We know Asteroid
>> 2008 TC3 was small but much larger than dust. So if a 3-6
>> meter asteroid can hit Earth, how small of a piece of debris
>> can make it to Earth through the atmosphere? How big was
>> Whetstone Mountain before entering our atmosphere? There was
>> not much of that piece recovered, and the video showed 3
>> distinct fragments flying briefly through the field of view
>> of the camera. West Texas was a daylight fireball seen from
>> hundreds of miles away, and it produced a good bit of
>> material. Buzzard Coulee too. These recent meteorite falls
>> have been hunted by a large number of very professional
>> meteorite hunters and scientists and yet the TKW of the
>> falls are small except maybe the BC fall. Buzzard Coulee had
>> a HUGE 13 kilo piece http://www.skyriver.ca/astro/bruce/marsden_meteorite%205.JPG
>> that impacted the ground and hundreds of other smaller
>> stones recovered.
>>
>> So how big "does" a meteoroid have to be to reach the
>> ground? Do we really know?
>>
>> Regards,
>> Eric Wichman
>> Meteorites USA
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Received on Tue 26 Jan 2010 10:58:28 AM PST