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Can a meteor change trajectory within the atmosphere?
Last night I saw a meteor, shooting across the sky and burning so brightly white that it had the 'star flare' without squinting.
As it came closer to the ground it changed to more and more orange hues.. and then, to my surprise, it slowed down a lot and started to drop more like a flare.. Doesn't really match my (limited) understanding of physics.
It didn't break up into pieces.
I wasn't a flare or plane (or UFO..) for sure. I have seen plenty of the first 2 to judge that.
It really didn't look like it fragmented, although the change to orange probably signified a change in the burning process.
I've seen another meteor fragment into ~10 pieces pretty close to where I was, and the fragmentation was really obvious - looking similar to a fireworks rocket.. however the smaller pieces continued in the same trajectory as the original meteor, although they were more fanned out.. Won't the fragments always follow the same path? Seems logical to me..
3 Answers
- don_sv_azLv 78 years agoFavorite Answer
As it gets deeper into the atmosphere it has less mass as some of it has burned off. Also the atmosphere is denser. Both of these effects mean that the meteor slows much faster as it gets closer to earth. Therefore it will move slower and fall at a steeper angle as it approaches (much like a flare).
- PaulLv 78 years ago
I love the way you say it wasn't a UFO for sure - if you don't know what it is then it is Unidentified and if it's in the sky it's Flying and if it exists it's an Object so by definitin it's a UFO. UFO doesn't mean alien space ship though.
It may be possible for a meteor to explode in the air and a large fragment fly off in a different trajectory. It's also possible that as the a meteor could change direction if it's small enough because as it enters different layers of atmosphere there are different winds with differing windspeeds and differing wind directions.
I've never seen a meteor get low enough for that to happen every meteor I've seen is a quick flash of white light that disappears after less than a second.
- 8 years ago
Yes ! Depending on the size and composition of the meteor many meteors explode when the heat up to a certain point and when they explode they fragment and the light given off changes color.
