[meteorite-list] A Twisted Meteor Trail Over Tenerife

[Chris Peterson]

If the trail in the image represents actual motion, we'd be looking at a 
meteor making lateral or spiral excursions on the order of a kilometer or 
more at several times per second. That would mean accelerations of around 
1000 G, almost certainly greater than the material strength of a meteoroid a 
few millimeters across. This scenario simply doesn't seem physically 
plausible.

Rotating or tumbling meteors show up as unusual light curves, not as 
non-linear motion.

Chris

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


----- Original Message ----- 
From: "Ryan Weidert" <ryan.weidert at gmail.com>
To: <meteorite-list at meteoritecentral.com>
Sent: Thursday, June 03, 2010 10:46 PM
Subject: Re: [meteorite-list] A Twisted Meteor Trail Over Tenerife


Hiya All,
I haven't been following this post until now, so im not sure if
this has been suggested, but could the meteor have been slowly
spinning as it entered? If it had a particular shape, (one side
rounded, one flat??), could it have curved/wiggled in a decaying
sinusoidal way as it rotated? If you had an object slowly rotating
with a curved side and a flat side, would it pull to one side while
the curved part was to the side of the fall direction, then switch as
it crossed to the other side, dragging it back the other way. If it
were slowly rotating, the drag could eventually stabilize the rotation
and cause a 'normal' straight fall.

Thoughts? Anything to add, tweak or otherwise disprove?

I too believe that the wiggle is most likely not from a camera bump.
The bump would have had to either happen JUST before or while the
exposure ended, or the camera would have to come back to the EXACT
place where it started to not show other duplicate starts, building
etc.

This is quite strange indeed

cheers,
ryan weidert.