At 1 AU, objects in orbit around the Sun have similar orbital speeds (not velocities). At sunset, the zenith (approximately, depending on latitude) is pointing back along the Earth's orbital path, so objects coming from that direction are in prograde orbits. As such, they have low relative speeds compared with the Earth- playing catch up, as you say. At dawn, the zenith is pointing forward along the Earth's orbital path, so we tend to get hit by objects in retrograde orbits, with a consequent high relative speed.
I don't know the statistics for the time distribution of witnessed falls, and they would probably be distorted by the fact that there are more hours of wake time between sunset and midnight then between midnight and dawn. I do know from years of allsky camera data that the sort of slow, bright meteors that are likely to produce meteorites occur several times more frequently before midnight than after. Chris ***************************************** Chris L Peterson Cloudbait Observatory http://www.cloudbait.com ----- Original Message ----- From: "doctor death" <[EMAIL PROTECTED]> To: <[email protected]> Sent: Friday, November 17, 2006 12:22 PM Subject: [meteorite-list] Meteor showers and meteorite falls > Meteorite showers from Comet trails might be CM2 or CI1 types if this > happens. Not big rocky ones like observed bolides. Perhaps more dust > in the > raingutters. Somewhere I recall that the best time to watch meteors is > around 4:00 am where the Earth is facing foward in orbit. And the most > likely time for a retrivable fall is 4:00 pm when a meteorite is > approaching earth is catching up to it in orbit. Kind of like > retriving > bugs off the front and back windshields. Anybody care to back me up > on > this? ______________________________________________ Meteorite-list mailing list [email protected] http://six.pairlist.net/mailman/listinfo/meteorite-list
