trail-free meteor?

Steve Campbell wrote in message ...
Been a long time since I have been here folks, too many zetafreaks, but the
other morning I witnesse something so odd that I had to come here in the
hope of finding out what it was.
It was around 6am(GMT) on Wednesday morning of this week. Was looking south
east and having a cigarette, when myself and a cow orker both seen the same
thing.....
What we observed was, essentially, a meteor. It moved vertically downward
from our perspective, moving through aroung 25 degrees of arc on the sky,
vanishing about 30 degrees from the horizon, and was as bright as the
brightest star in the sky at the time ( venus?). What was odd ( and what
propmpted a lot of "did you see that too????")was that it was a point
source of light, not even the merest hint of a trail or afterglow of any
kind whatsoever. it looked more than anything like a satellite passing
over, but speeded up 1000 fold.
The only thing that comes to mind at all ( and this will probably get me
laughed out of here) is that maybe the recent solar activity was having
some effect on the outer atmosphere that prevent the formation of the trail
( it's mainly ionized gass isn't it?), though I am not sure the effects had
reached us by that time.

Does anyone have any ideas at all as to what may have been going on, because
we ) myself and the other witness) are bother starting to think we may be
insane

I hope that you could estimate its impact point- what if it was a lump
of gold?
Trails are the burning up of the meteor, but if it were inert??
Chemical compound most prevelent (IIRC) is nickel, but why not another
heavy element?
Compare positions of gold fields, add in geological history (formation
of mountains, erosion, continental drift etc)- and see if the pattern
in some cases doesn't hint at the gold being of meteoric
origin...........

Jim G

Jim Greenfield wrote:

I hope that you could estimate its impact point- what if it was a lump
of gold?
Trails are the burning up of the meteor, but if it were inert??
Chemical compound most prevelent (IIRC) is nickel, but why not another
heavy element?
Compare positions of gold fields, add in geological history (formation
of mountains, erosion, continental drift etc)- and see if the pattern
in some cases doesn't hint at the gold being of meteoric
origin...........
welllllll, two things really.
First, it never made the ground, it vanished when still several degrees
above the horizon. Secondly, as well as the burning up of the object the
trail of a meteor is also made up of atmospheric gas that has been ionised
by the violence of the object's passage.

"Steve Campbell"
First, it never made the ground, it vanished when still several degrees
above the horizon. Secondly, as well as the burning up of the object the
trail of a meteor is also made up of atmospheric gas that has been ionised
by the violence of the object's passage.

Actually, just because a meteor is no longer visible does not mean it
has not carried on. When a major fireball enters the atmosphere its
velocity is retarded to a point where ablation stops. This can occur when
the meteoroid is slowed to around 2 to 5 km/second. When ablation stops the
meteoroid is no longer visible but it has entered the so called "dark"
portion of the flight path. This can occur at any altitude below 30 kms but
it is more often in the 10-15 km height range. The lowest altitude for a
photographically recorded fireball is 13 kms according to Dr. Jiri Borovicka
of Ondrejov Observatory. This refers to large fireball meteoroids not the
more normal bright cometary meteors observed mostly during annual meteor
showers like the Perseids, Geminids or Leonids etc. These are high velocity
meteors and they burn up high in the atmosphere with no chance of reaching
the ground as a meteorite.

Ed Majden
EMO Sandia Bolide Detection Station
Courtenay, B.C. Canada

Steve Campbell wrote in message ...
Jim Greenfield wrote:

I hope that you could estimate its impact point- what if it was a lump
of gold?
Trails are the burning up of the meteor, but if it were inert??
Chemical compound most prevelent (IIRC) is nickel, but why not another
heavy element?
Compare positions of gold fields, add in geological history (formation
of mountains, erosion, continental drift etc)- and see if the pattern
in some cases doesn't hint at the gold being of meteoric
origin...........
welllllll, two things really.
First, it never made the ground, it vanished when still several degrees
above the horizon. Secondly, as well as the burning up of the object the
trail of a meteor is also made up of atmospheric gas that has been ionised
by the violence of the object's passage.

Well if the trail is (partly) our atmosphere glowing, I guess there
goes the pot of gold (sigh). Are you sure that the meteor wasn't
obscured by a rainbow?

Jim G

Jim Greenfield wrote:


Well if the trail is (partly) our atmosphere glowing, I guess there
goes the pot of gold (sigh). Are you sure that the meteor wasn't
obscured by a rainbow?
'Fraid so and even though I'm in ireland.....there was no little chap playin
a fiddle around either