[meteorite-list] Meteor showers and meteorite falls
Chris Peterson
clp at alumni.caltech.edu
Fri Nov 17 16:52:25 EST 2006
At 1 AU, objects in orbit around the Sun have similar orbital speeds
(not velocities). At sunset, the zenith (approximately, depending on
latitude) is pointing back along the Earth's orbital path, so objects
coming from that direction are in prograde orbits. As such, they have
low relative speeds compared with the Earth- playing catch up, as you
say. At dawn, the zenith is pointing forward along the Earth's orbital
path, so we tend to get hit by objects in retrograde orbits, with a
consequent high relative speed.
I don't know the statistics for the time distribution of witnessed
falls, and they would probably be distorted by the fact that there are
more hours of wake time between sunset and midnight then between
midnight and dawn. I do know from years of allsky camera data that the
sort of slow, bright meteors that are likely to produce meteorites occur
several times more frequently before midnight than after.
Chris
*****************************************
Chris L Peterson
Cloudbait Observatory
http://www.cloudbait.com
----- Original Message -----
From: "doctor death" <neocondeatheaters at hotmail.com>
To: <meteorite-list at meteoritecentral.com>
Sent: Friday, November 17, 2006 12:22 PM
Subject: [meteorite-list] Meteor showers and meteorite falls
> Meteorite showers from Comet trails might be CM2 or CI1 types if this
> happens. Not big rocky ones like observed bolides. Perhaps more dust
> in the
> raingutters. Somewhere I recall that the best time to watch meteors is
> around 4:00 am where the Earth is facing foward in orbit. And the most
> likely time for a retrivable fall is 4:00 pm when a meteorite is
> approaching earth is catching up to it in orbit. Kind of like
> retriving
> bugs off the front and back windshields. Anybody care to back me up
> on
> this?
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