Hi Bob-
Even small meteoroids don't heat up inside during their brief meteor
phase. Ablation is simply too efficient at carrying away heat. Also,
it's doubtful any significant gas pockets exist in meteoroids.
There are quite a few videos of meteors breaking up, and they don't seem
to show anything like true explosions. I've recorded perhaps 100 events
bright enough to show fragmentation, and the fragments always appear to
continue along substantially the same path.
BTW, the space environment isn't particularly cold. The interior of
meteoroids varies from tens of degrees below freezing to tens of degrees
above.
Chris
*****************************************
Chris L Peterson
Cloudbait Observatory
http://www.cloudbait.com
----- Original Message -----
From: "Bob Loeffler" <[EMAIL PROTECTED]>
To: <Meteorite-list@meteoritecentral.com>
Sent: Wednesday, March 19, 2008 11:42 PM
Subject: Re: [meteorite-list] Further thoughts
Hi mexicodoug, et al,
Does anyone have evidence of what really happens (i.e. explode or
fragment)
with meteors/meteoroids that pass through the atmosphere? I'm a newbie
and
therefore not pretending to know what I'm talking about, but it would
seem
to me that there are some meteors/meteroids that COULD have gases
trapped in
their molecular structure that COULD heat up and actually explode during
their fiery passage through our atmosphere. Large meteors wouldn't do
this
because their internal temperatures never increase at all (they are
still as
cold as the space environment where they have been traveling for eons),
but
small friable meteors like Carancas could possibly have gases in them
that
could heat up and therefore explode in our atmosphere.
That is just a guess, not a fact, so please no flames. ;-) I'm just
trying
to get these ideas out of my head and get some explanations for them.
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