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

[Alexander Seidel]

> 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