English Deutsch Français Italiano Español Português 繁體中文 Bahasa Indonesia Tiếng Việt ภาษาไทย
All categories

How bright is it? Unlike other normal meteor, it can spotted in the night sky when there is, which is rare.

2006-10-27 18:24:30 · 2 answers · asked by Eve W 3 in Science & Mathematics Astronomy & Space

2 answers

fireball is another term for a very bright meteor, generally brighter than magnitude -3 or -4, which is about the same magnitude of the planet Venus in the morning or evening sky. A bolide is a special type of fireball which explodes in a bright terminal flash at its end, often with visible fragmentation.
but the meteor must be brighter than about magnitude -6 to be noticed in a portion of the sky away from the sun, and must be even brighter when it occurs closer to the sun.

Fireballs can develop two types of trails behind them: trains and smoke trails. A train is a glowing trail of ionized and excited air molecules left behind after the passage of the meteor. Most trains last only a few seconds, but on rare occasions a train may last up to several minutes. A train of this duration can often be seen to change shape over time as it is blown by upper atmospheric winds. Trains generally occur very high in the meteoric region of the atmosphere, generally greater than 80 km (65 miles) altitude, and are most often associated with fast meteors. Fireball trains are often visible at night, and very rarely by day.

The second type of trail is called a smoke trail, and is more often seen in daylight fireballs than at night. Generally occurring below 80 km of altitude, smoke trails are a non-luminous trail of particulate stripped away during the ablation process. These appear similar to contrails left behind by aircraft, and can have either a light or dark appearance.

2006-10-27 19:44:56 · answer #1 · answered by veerabhadrasarma m 7 · 0 0

The brightness of a meteorite striking the Earth's atmosphere depends on many factors. The size and composition of the object, the angle that it approaches, whether or not it disintegrates, How dark the sky, the conditions of the atmosphere. There are meteor showers that appear at predictable times of the year and the fireballs appear to emanate radially from a particular part of the sky. These showers are caused by the earth passing through the remains of disintegrated comets.

2006-10-28 01:40:39 · answer #2 · answered by Vermin 5 · 0 0

fedest.com, questions and answers