What did I see early this morning in NE Ohio?

I was going for a bike ride early this morning in my neighborhood in
the eastern suburbs of Cleveland, and was distracted by a bright flash
in the sky. I looked up and I knew it wasn't a shooting star. It was
way brighter and it left a trail of smoke, unlike the trail of light of
a shooting star. It took about five seconds until it faded away. I
think it was a meteor and my dad said it could have been space junk.
What does every one else think?

Jethro

Jethro wrote:

I was going for a bike ride early this morning in my neighborhood in
the eastern suburbs of Cleveland, and was distracted by a bright flash
in the sky. I looked up and I knew it wasn't a shooting star. It was
way brighter and it left a trail of smoke, unlike the trail of light of
a shooting star. It took about five seconds until it faded away. I
think it was a meteor and my dad said it could have been space junk.
What does every one else think?


That's a Perseid meteor. They can be quite bright and can leave trails
of smoke. I remember watching them in '93 in the back woods of New
Brunswick and the smoke trails were quite visible.

..

"Jethro" wrote in message
oups.com...
I was going for a bike ride early this morning in my neighborhood in
the eastern suburbs of Cleveland, and was distracted by a bright flash
in the sky. I looked up and I knew it wasn't a shooting star. It was
way brighter and it left a trail of smoke, unlike the trail of light of
a shooting star. It took about five seconds until it faded away. I
think it was a meteor and my dad said it could have been space junk.
What does every one else think?

Jethro
A shooting star, is a meteor...
The key thing is that just like lightning, where there is a huge range of
distances where the strike occurs relative to you, different types, and
different intensities, there is a similar 'range' with regards to meteors.
You get the smallest ones that are literally tiny specks of dust, in the
upper atmosphere, which give the 'shooting star', which lasts only for a
moment, through larger ones, getting closer, and often with some
differences in the materials involved, giving more display into the lower
atmosphere, with some becoming 'bolides', with a visible fireball, and the
largest, having components that then reach the Earth as a 'meteorite'.
Now at the moment, the Earth is passing through the cloud of particles
left behind by comet Swift-Tuttle, and are getting a meteor 'shower', with
higher frequencies of meteors. You almost certainly saw a somewhat larger
meteor from this shower, that was big enough to last lower into the
atmosphere, and hence gave the display you witnessed.

Best Wishes