by Dan Cordell » Thu Feb 03, 2005 2:02 am
Rather than answering it via email, I'll answer it here.
No, it could not have been camera jitter. While camera jitter can cause similar effects, a meteor's streak lasts (at most) a second, and usually not that long. Also notice that the background stars are not blurred like that--had the camera been vibrating, the star blur would have been significantly larger.
APOD's explaination is correct. As per some research done in the past few months by S. Tilvi (and to a limited extent, myself), many meteors are not made of uniform material, but rather dense chunks held together by less dense material. It is this non-uniformity, along with in-space collisions, that cause many meteors to be in strange shapes.
If a non-spherical meteor hits the atmosphere spinning, it can cause an effect like this. Most are not as noticable, this is a particularly impressive event. Which, of course, is why it made it to APOD.
Rather than answering it via email, I'll answer it here.
No, it could not have been camera jitter. While camera jitter can cause similar effects, a meteor's streak lasts (at most) a second, and usually not that long. Also notice that the background stars are not blurred like that--had the camera been vibrating, the star blur would have been significantly larger.
APOD's explaination is correct. As per some research done in the past few months by S. Tilvi (and to a limited extent, myself), many meteors are not made of uniform material, but rather dense chunks held together by less dense material. It is this non-uniformity, along with in-space collisions, that cause many meteors to be in strange shapes.
If a non-spherical meteor hits the atmosphere spinning, it can cause an effect like this. Most are not as noticable, this is a particularly impressive event. Which, of course, is why it made it to APOD.