In uk.sci.astronomy message , Wed, 26 Sep
2012 09:12:50, N_Cook posted:

Dr J R Stockton wrote in message
. invalid...
In uk.sci.astronomy message , Mon, 24 Sep
2012 08:27:03, N_Cook posted:

Dr J R Stockton wrote in message
. invalid...

So you would call a meteor shower, unsynced , distributed streaks with a
common radiant point , well off the planet. If a small meteorite/ large
meteor, breaks up inside our atmosphere, what would you term the the
shower
of synced, close-spaced trails?

The trails of pieces of a meteor - but not a shower. That presumes that
the original meteor was visible, if not necessarily seen, before it
broke up; and so had been a single meteoroid.

An exercise for the reader : consider a meteoroid which is essentially a
bag of marbles, or of grains, but without the bag and held together only
by their mutual gravity. Assume that they arrive at the Roche Limit
with the usual sort of speed, and in a direction which meets the
atmosphere at the usual sort of angle for human-observed meteors. The
clump will begin to break up on crossing the Limit. Typically, what
will be the spread of the marbles or grains when they become visible?


A cylinder ?

But of what size?

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