[meteorite-list] How far away can a meteor be heard?

[Chris Peterson]

I have many reliable reports of people hearing sonic booms from terminal 
explosions located over 30 miles above them. I can't say easily what 
horizontal distance I've had reports from, but I'm sure it's more than 10 
miles.

FWIW, I can hear fireworks set off about 30 miles away from my house, and 
about 5000 feet higher elevation.

Chris

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


----- Original Message ----- 
From: "drtanuki" <drtanuki at yahoo.com>
To: <meteorite-list at meteoritecentral.com>; "Chris Peterson" 
<clp at alumni.caltech.edu>
Sent: Thursday, July 09, 2009 8:39 AM
Subject: How far away can a meteor be heard?


>
> List,
>  I have the answer for thunder but not a meteor (I am guessing that they 
> are about the same?  10miles or 16km
>
> Chris or anyone care to give the correct answer?  Thanks!
>
> Thunder contains a somewhat cylindrical initial pressure shock wave along 
> the lightning channel in excess of 10 times the normal atmospheric 
> pressure. This shock wave decays rapidly into a sound wave within feet or 
> meters. When thunder is heard from about 328 feet (100 m) distance, it 
> consists of one large bang, yet hissing and clicking may be heard just 
> prior to the bang (upward streamers). When heard at .6 mile (1 km) from 
> lightning, thunder will rumble with several loud claps.
>
> Thunder is seldom heard beyond 10 miles (16 km) under ideal conditions. 
> The sound of distant thunder has a characteristic low-pitched rumbling 
> sound. Pitch, the degree of highness or lowness of a sound, is due to 
> strong absorption and scattering of high-frequency components of the 
> original sound waves, while the rumbling results from the fact that sound 
> waves are emitted from different locations along the lightning channel, 
> which lie at varying distances from a person. The longer the lightning 
> channels, the longer the sound of thunder. Humans hear frequencies of 
> thunder between 20-120 Hertz (Hz). However, there is a small amount, less 
> than 10%, that is inaudible to humans produced from lightning, called 
> infrasonic. Special listening devices are required to record these 
> inaudible sounds.
> Sources: http://www.lightningsafety.com/nlsi_info/thunder2.html
>
> Best Regards, Dirk Ross...Tokyo