I have many reliable reports of people hearing sonic booms from terminal
explosions located over 30 miles above them. I can't say easily what
horizontal distance I've had reports from, but I'm sure it's more than 10
miles.
FWIW, I can hear fireworks set off about 30 miles away from my house, and
about 5000 feet higher elevation.
Chris
*****************************************
Chris L Peterson
Cloudbait Observatory
http://www.cloudbait.com
----- Original Message -----
From: "drtanuki" <[email protected]>
To: <[email protected]>; "Chris Peterson"
<[email protected]>
Sent: Thursday, July 09, 2009 8:39 AM
Subject: How far away can a meteor be heard?
List,
I have the answer for thunder but not a meteor (I am guessing that they
are about the same? 10miles or 16km
Chris or anyone care to give the correct answer? Thanks!
Thunder contains a somewhat cylindrical initial pressure shock wave along
the lightning channel in excess of 10 times the normal atmospheric
pressure. This shock wave decays rapidly into a sound wave within feet or
meters. When thunder is heard from about 328 feet (100 m) distance, it
consists of one large bang, yet hissing and clicking may be heard just
prior to the bang (upward streamers). When heard at .6 mile (1 km) from
lightning, thunder will rumble with several loud claps.
Thunder is seldom heard beyond 10 miles (16 km) under ideal conditions.
The sound of distant thunder has a characteristic low-pitched rumbling
sound. Pitch, the degree of highness or lowness of a sound, is due to
strong absorption and scattering of high-frequency components of the
original sound waves, while the rumbling results from the fact that sound
waves are emitted from different locations along the lightning channel,
which lie at varying distances from a person. The longer the lightning
channels, the longer the sound of thunder. Humans hear frequencies of
thunder between 20-120 Hertz (Hz). However, there is a small amount, less
than 10%, that is inaudible to humans produced from lightning, called
infrasonic. Special listening devices are required to record these
inaudible sounds.
Sources: http://www.lightningsafety.com/nlsi_info/thunder2.html
Best Regards, Dirk Ross...Tokyo
______________________________________________
http://www.meteoritecentral.com
Meteorite-list mailing list
[email protected]
http://six.pairlist.net/mailman/listinfo/meteorite-list
