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APOD: A Twisted Meteor Trail Over Tenerife (2010 Jun 02)
Posted: Wed Jun 02, 2010 4:05 am
by APOD Robot
A Twisted Meteor Trail Over Tenerife
Explanation: Did this meteor take a twisting path? No one is sure.
Considered opinions are solicited. Meteors, usually sand sized grains that originate in comets, will typically
disintegrate as they enter the
Earth's atmosphere. A fast moving meteor ionizes molecules in the Earth's atmosphere that
subsequently glow when they reacquire
electrons.
Meteor paths that twist noticeably have been
noted before, and
even photographed, but attributing such behavior to the motion of the meteor itself and neither the
wind-blown meteor train nor the observer remains somewhat controversial. The above meteor, imaged two weeks ago streaking over the
Teide Observatory in
Tenerife,
Canary Islands, appears to swagger as much as several
minutes of arc, which the experienced astrophotographer did not think could be attributed to drifting of the
resulting train or motion of the
camera mount. If truly an indication of a
twisted meteor path, an underlying reason could be the pictured meteor was markedly non-spherical in shape, non-uniform in composition, or
electrically charged. Non-uniform
meteors, for example, may evaporate more on one side than another, causing a
rotating meteor to wobble. Understanding meteors is important partly because meteors are candidates to have seeded
Earth with
prebiotic molecules that allowed for the
development of life.
[/b]
Re: APOD: A Twisted Meteor Trail Over Tenerife (2010 Jun 02)
Posted: Wed Jun 02, 2010 4:07 am
by Guest
Knuckleball meteor!
![Smile :)](./images/smilies/icon_smile.gif)
Re: APOD: A Twisted Meteor Trail Over Tenerife (2010 Jun 02)
Posted: Wed Jun 02, 2010 4:20 am
by davidcasseres
I vote for an unsymmetrical meteor (either geometrically, or in its composition, or both) that acquires a spin as it passes through the atmosphere and then emits a jet of gas from one side as it heats up. I believe that would cause the observed helical path.
Re: APOD: A Twisted Meteor Trail Over Tenerife (2010 Jun 02)
Posted: Wed Jun 02, 2010 4:21 am
by Beyond
If it was a knuckle ball, it would have a BIG curve to it. It most likely just passed through a bit of turbulence like airplanes do.
Now IF it had done curly cue's -- That would be really
![Exclamation :!:](./images/smilies/icon_exclaim.gif)
Re: APOD: A Twisted Meteor Trail Over Tenerife (2010 Jun 02)
Posted: Wed Jun 02, 2010 4:21 am
by HellCat
Re: APOD: A Twisted Meteor Trail Over Tenerife (2010 Jun 02)
Posted: Wed Jun 02, 2010 4:25 am
by dhou
This trail indeed looks like the path of a knuckleball. It is easier to see on a volleyball court when a fast service with no rotation is coming at you. The wobble can easily be as great as the diameter of the ball, and that is at relatively slow speeds. I doubt that either the wind or the observer is going to oscillate in a similar manner. So my vote is for a non-rotating, relatively spherical object. Lacing optional.
Re: APOD: A Twisted Meteor Trail Over Tenerife (2010 Jun 02)
Posted: Wed Jun 02, 2010 4:29 am
by Chris Peterson
This image has been widely discussed in the meteoritics community. The consensus (unanimous as far as I've seen) is that the camera got jarred by wind or maybe an animal. The same effect has been seen on other images where that happened.
Re: APOD: A Twisted Meteor Trail Over Tenerife (2010 Jun 02)
Posted: Wed Jun 02, 2010 4:52 am
by prigator@aol.com
"meteors are candidates for seeding life on Earth...."
That is the old sci-fi excuse of long, long ago and far, far away, which avoids the question of where and when life first appeared. It is lost in distance and time, hopelessy inexplicable. Why not postulate abiogenesis? Maybe that happens frequently. Maybe it happened for the millionth time in a swamp in Louisiana last Thursday.
Doug Chandler
APOD: A Twisted Meteor Trail Over Tenerife (2010 Jun 02)
Posted: Wed Jun 02, 2010 5:00 am
by Bernardo Trier
besides the effects described, the body rotated.
Re: APOD: A Twisted Meteor Trail Over Tenerife (2010 Jun 02)
Posted: Wed Jun 02, 2010 5:15 am
by bystander
prigator@aol.com wrote:"meteors are candidates for seeding life on Earth...."
That is the old sci-fi excuse of long, long ago and far, far away, which avoids the question of where and when life first appeared. It is lost in distance and time, hopelessy inexplicable. Why not postulate abiogenesis? Maybe that happens frequently. Maybe it happened for the millionth time in a swamp in Louisiana last Thursday.
Even
abiogenesis needs something to work with. Common thought now is that the building blocks of life came from meteoroids, not life itself.
Re: APOD: A Twisted Meteor Trail Over Tenerife (2010 Jun 02)
Posted: Wed Jun 02, 2010 5:31 am
by MikeLynch
My guess: Rapidly spinning Earth satellite collision debris burning up on reentry.
Re: APOD: A Twisted Meteor Trail Over Tenerife (2010 Jun 02)
Posted: Wed Jun 02, 2010 5:38 am
by volans95
Notice how the meteor's train wobbles quite signifcantly at the begining but has smoothed out by the end. To me. this would indicate an irregular shaped body that has undergone ablation to become less irregular and therefore more stable. I'm not too sure about an animal or the wind knocking the camera/camera mount because that we be just too coincidental - to have the camera bumped in the same split second it took for the meteor to flash across the sky (although I wouldn't rule it out entirely).
Chris Peterson wrote:This image has been widely discussed in the meteoritics community. The consensus (unanimous as far as I've seen) is that the camera got jarred by wind or maybe an animal. The same effect has been seen on other images where that happened.
Re: APOD: A Twisted Meteor Trail Over Tenerife (2010 Jun 02)
Posted: Wed Jun 02, 2010 5:48 am
by paulkru
What is interesting to me is that it looks like a decaying sine wave. Like it was 'rung like a bell' and the sound dies out. What would happen if the object left a trail and also produced a 'sonic boom''? Could the pressure waves from the 'boom' distort the trail in a regular pattern, decreasing over distance?
Re: APOD: A Twisted Meteor Trail Over Tenerife (2010 Jun 02)
Posted: Wed Jun 02, 2010 5:54 am
by Tom Edgar
Occam and I postulate atmospheric distortion/aberration
Re: APOD: A Twisted Meteor Trail Over Tenerife (2010 Jun 02)
Posted: Wed Jun 02, 2010 7:16 am
by dr_olman
Looks like dampening vibration caused by camera shake. Notice symmetrical blur marks around star images.
Re: APOD: A Twisted Meteor Trail Over Tenerife (2010 Jun 02)
Posted: Wed Jun 02, 2010 7:27 am
by madtom1999
Jarred Camera? There doesn't seem to be any evidence of that in the stars.
Anyone who has thrown rocks off a high cliff will have seen this effect - though I've not managed a hypersonic launch yet!
Anyone know where I can get hold of some open-source software for analysing hypersonic 'flight' or is it 'military secret' stuff.
Re: APOD: A Twisted Meteor Trail Over Tenerife (2010 Jun 02)
Posted: Wed Jun 02, 2010 9:04 am
by Geoffrey Hui
There seems to be another fainter streak to the right of the photo. Is it the same meteor, or is it another streak?
Re: APOD: A Twisted Meteor Trail Over Tenerife (2010 Jun 02)
Posted: Wed Jun 02, 2010 9:32 am
by demoj
For such a short event, it seems unlikely that camera wobble would explain the effect. I agree with a couple of the other posters in that the shape and/or rotation of the meteor as it entered the atmosphere would be a good possibility.
Re: APOD: A Twisted Meteor Trail Over Tenerife (2010 Jun 02)
Posted: Wed Jun 02, 2010 9:50 am
by smita
Is the meteor in earth's atmosphere? How do we know that?
Thanks,
Smita
Re: APOD: A Twisted Meteor Trail Over Tenerife (2010 Jun 02)
Posted: Wed Jun 02, 2010 9:52 am
by sterrenkijker
Chris Peterson wrote:This image has been widely discussed in the meteoritics community. The consensus (unanimous as far as I've seen) is that the camera got jarred by wind or maybe an animal. The same effect has been seen on other images where that happened.
I'am with you. The first thing I thought when I saw this picture was camera wobble. You don't notice this in the stars because of the relatively short exposure, but will show up in a fast moving object like a meteor.
Re: APOD: A Twisted Meteor Trail Over Tenerife (2010 Jun 02)
Posted: Wed Jun 02, 2010 10:07 am
by Steve White
When I was a kid living in California not far from Vandenberg Air Force Base, I saw several re-entries of rocket parts that took non-rectilinear paths.
Re: APOD: A Twisted Meteor Trail Over Tenerife (2010 Jun 02)
Posted: Wed Jun 02, 2010 11:01 am
by rtgambit
I'm going with a jarred camera myself (rather than the tripod). Take a close look at the stars in the image. All appear to have a faint wing shape to either side which points towards the center of the frame.
Re: APOD: A Twisted Meteor Trail Over Tenerife (2010 Jun 02)
Posted: Wed Jun 02, 2010 11:05 am
by isogroup
After years of observing hundreds of meteors, I have once seen a twisting entry. Leaves a strong impression on your senses. It looked even more pronounced than the one in the photo and it was a retrograde orbit entry. No idea why it would spiral like it did.
Re: APOD: A Twisted Meteor Trail Over Tenerife (2010 Jun 02)
Posted: Wed Jun 02, 2010 11:06 am
by Excalibur
Readout of a interlaced ccd's can at times give very similar pattern, was the camera working in an interlaced mode ?
Re: APOD: A Twisted Meteor Trail Over Tenerife (2010 Jun 02)
Posted: Wed Jun 02, 2010 11:08 am
by JLo
Two "meteor trails," both with the same spiral twist, appear in the photo. This would tend to rule out a rotating meteor since they are relatively uncommon; but the 2nd one looks so much like the 1st that it may be an aberration, maybe caused by the lens ... or a hoax. In any case, the distant observatory is blurry; but a closer structure is sharper ... so the camera is not properly focused for distant objects (stars and satellites). The trails appear to display a sort of dampened sine wave with a relatively constant period ... like a "ping" on something with a resonant frequency ... like the tripod holding the camera. The distant star trails tend to lead one to believe that the exposure was taken of something moving slower than a meteor ... perhaps an old man-made, defunct, rotating satellite as it orbits the Earth with sunlight reflecting from it. Why would such an object show a dampened wave instead of a constant-amplitude wave? Maybe because it's trajectory is changing as it accelerates toward the earth to its destruction?