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Credit: Jimmy
Westlake
(Colorado
Mountain College)
Explanation:
Did this meteor leave a twisting path? Evidently.
Meteor trains
that twist noticeably are rare -
and even more rarely photographed - but have been
noted before.
The underlying reason for
unusual meteors trains
is that many meteors are markedly non-spherical
in shape and non-uniform in composition.
Meteors, usually sand sized grains that originate in comets,
will disintegrate as they enter the
Earth's atmosphere.
Non-uniform meteors may evaporate more on one side than another.
This may cause a
rotating meteor to wobble slightly in its path,
and also to
spray
fast moving debris
in a nearly spiral path.
The fast moving meteor debris ionizes molecules in the
Earth's atmosphere that subsequently glow when they reacquire
elections.
Surely no meteor is perfectly uniform and spherical, so that
a slight swagger that is below perceptibility is likely typical.
Meteors may well have seeded
Earth with the
prebiotic molecules that allowed for the
development of life.
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Based on Astronomy Picture
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Publications with keywords: meteor
Publications with words: meteor
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