[meteorite-list] Fw: Meteors Light Up Morning Sky in Colorado

[Chris Peterson]

Hi José-

Fireballs can certainly be visible for more than a few seconds. This
one: http://www.cloudbait.com/science/fireball20061001.html was visible
for at least 45 seconds. I've recorded several others that were at least
15 seconds long. People under the central part of the Peekskill path saw
it for about 30 seconds. The Grand Teton fireball was about 30 seconds.
Tagish Lake produced a fireball at least 15 seconds long.

Reentering space debris is not necessarily traveling at a much lower
speed than natural meteors. An object decaying from low Earth orbit
(which would seem to describe all space junk) has a speed of about 8
km/s, and a slow meteor has a speed of about 11 km/s. Of course, most
meteors will be faster (up to 71 km/s), but the famous slow fireballs
have very similar characteristics to decaying space junk- low speed and
shallow entry angles- and may similarly be seen for many seconds.

Chris

*****************************************
Chris L Peterson
Cloudbait Observatory
http://www.cloudbait.com


----- Original Message ----- 
From: "Jose Campos" <josecamposcomet at netcabo.pt>
To: <gary at webbers.com>; "Meteorite List" 
<meteorite-list at meteoritecentral.com>
Sent: Friday, January 05, 2007 3:46 PM
Subject: Re: [meteorite-list] Fw: Meteors Light Up Morning Sky in 
Colorado


Hi Gary,

By space debris, I meant several  pieces of a MAN MADE spacecraft,
desintegrating thru the Earth's atmosphere.
Sorry about the confusion.
As regarding time, a meteor's visibility  lasts only a few seconds, 
whereas
for man made space debris, as it travells at  a much slower speed, it's
burning trail  becomes visible  for a few minutes. The video shown on 
CNN is
quite spectacular.
I have seen a similar event, some 20 yrs ago (?), at night, over the 
Indian
Ocean, when I was walking with friends on the beac front in Durban, 
South
Africa. This event was seen by many people. The next day, it was 
reported on
south african newspapers and TV.

The visibility of a  meteor, even a -14 mag  fireball, (that is as 
bright as
the full moon),  will not last longer than a few seconds, at most.
José Campos