Leonids, a question

From: Amara Graps (amara@amara.com)
Date: Sun Nov 18 2001 - 18:35:37 MST


Andrew Clough:
>This brings me to something I found a little
>puzzling. Near the beginning of the shower, the meteors seemed to be
>brighter than the ones that came later.

I think it's simple geometry. The trajectories of the earlier meteors
intersected the Earth face-on (say 70 km/sec) than the later ones (grazing).
Picture in your mind how the Earth is rotatng as it intersects the trail(s).

>If somebody knows the
>>answer, or even just solar wind density and velocity, along with the
>>velocity of the comet at the time the meteors broke off

......except that we didn't have spacecraft measuring the
solar wind speed/density way back then ...

(The dust trails from this shower are associated with the 1767, 1699, and
1866 perihelion passages of comet Temple-Tuttle)

Amara

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Amara Graps, PhD | Max-Planck-Institut fuer Kernphysik
Heidelberg Cosmic Dust Group | Saupfercheckweg 1
+49-6221-516-543 | 69117 Heidelberg, GERMANY
Amara.Graps@mpi-hd.mpg.de * http://www.mpi-hd.mpg.de/dustgroup/~graps
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"We came whirling out of Nothingness scattering stars like dust." --Rumi



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