As I've noted often in the past, it requires very unusual conditions for
a meteorite to retain any of its horizontal velocity component when it
reaches the ground. The conditions of the Cali fall wouldn't seem to
support this. These lightweight stones may have had a slight north to
south angle because of the low level winds, or they may simply have been
deflected on impact. You don't have enough samples to say with any
certainty. But it is certainly the case that <100 g stones one minute
past a terminal explosion are falling with a horizontal airspeed of
essentially zero.
If these fell within 30 seconds of a terminal explosion, occurring at
less than 10,000 feet height, some forward velocity would likely remain.
Any chance of that?
Chris
*****************************************
Chris L Peterson
Cloudbait Observatory
http://www.cloudbait.com
----- Original Message -----
From: "Michael Farmer" <[EMAIL PROTECTED]>
To: "Armando Afonso" <[EMAIL PROTECTED]>;
<[email protected]>
Sent: Sunday, July 29, 2007 9:38 AM
Subject: [meteorite-list] Cali meteorite fall trajectory and offset
ofdamage.
Armando, we did measure the hole/impact offsets, of 3
of the 4 house smashers (Cali #004 did not enter the
home, so there was only the initial impact point).
The other two were offset from ~9 cm for Cali #003
which hit the top of the refrigerator so did no travel
very far after penetrating the roof.
Cali #001 was offset more than 30 cm and it was
exactly in the North/South trajectory, just like the
dirction of travel, so it was not falling strait down
at terminal velocity.
Cali #002 was offset by about 15 cm, same, north/south
trajectory.
These are more things that I need to tweek on the
pages. It shows to me that the meteorite were moving
very rapidly for such small stones to do as much
damage as they did, and they were not just falling
strait down.
Michael Farmer
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