[meteorite-list] A Twisted Meteor Trail Over Tenerife

[GeoZay at aol.com]

Whatever Sterling said, I agree.  :O)   What bothers me is that Rendtel is 
a very experienced and knowledgeable meteor  observer. It's almost like an 
overall trick question was asked with him already  knowing the answers to the 
obvious questions that are gonna be tossed up. The  part that Sterling 
brought up where he mentions "The trail commences as straight  and increasingly 
acquires the "wave" in the portions of the trail that are  older" is what 
sticks in my mind the most to suspect wind involvement. Still I  can't help 
thinking that Juergen has already considered this. I wonder what is  making 
him think otherwise? I wonder how bright this meteor was with an  indication 
as to how large the meteoroid was? I'm suspecting rather small at the  
moment. It would seem to me that any forces strong enuf to make the meteoroid  
change direction the first time would be strong enuf for it to be destroyed. 
Yet  alone multiple directional changes?
GeoZay:

>>There is no 3-D to  any flat image from a single
observation site. More properly, all we can say  is
that the trail is "waved." Whether this is a side
view of a helix or a  view of a flat wave cannot
be determined from one photograph.

Clearly,  the trail commences as straight and
increasingly acquires the "wave" in the  portions
of the trail that are "older," that is, have interacted
with the  upper atmosphere for a longer and longer
time at the moment the photo was  taken.

This clearly implies that the "wave" is induced by
a  progressive interaction with the atmosphere. It
may be more of a "plasma" or  electrodynamic
interaction than simple wind.

The suggestion of an  irregular or wobbling or spinning
meteoroid is suspect, as material shed with  varying
lateral motion components would disperse into an
irregular pattern  much closer to the "head" of the
trail than what is seen here.<<