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U.S. East Coast Bombarded By ... What?
gmr2048 writes: "Our local Fox affiliate is reporting a compact-car size metior may have hit north central PA Monday evening. CNN story here. Too bad I missed it :("
The loyal fjordboy writes: "At about 6:30 EST this evening, many meteors broke apart and headed south coming from Canada. I was able to witness the meteor flying overhead in Trout Run, PA and it was spectacular. There was an incredible bright flash and then a meteor with an incredible tail. A few minutes after it had left, a sound shook the ground and buildings in the vicinity. It even set off some car alarms in the parking lot." Anyone else out there see this in person?
Ze next von, comradeskees, vill be pointed at ze capitaliste pigz at Adobe.
Not so. Terminal velocity derives from the force balance of an object with (more or less) zero kinetic energy falling towards earth, and the drag force that object encounters.
.5*M*V^2, where M is mass and V is the final velocity of the object. Since drag varies as the square of velocity (for a relatively flat plate normal to the free stream) your velocity goes up to some rather modest figure, and then stabilizes at the so-called terminal velocity.
Essentially, your energy balance looks like this:
PEinitial=KEfinal+Edrag
where Edrag is the total energy lost over the fall due to drag (IE integrate the drag over the distance fallen).
PEinitial is a function of height above ground (OK, fine, distance from the center of the earth, but it's a difference so your zero point doesn't matter...you get the idea.)
KEfinal is equal to
A meteorite is coming into the atmosphere at Ludicrous Speed, and basically doesn't give a fuck about what the atmosphere thinks about it. : ) The meteorite ablates, producing a VERY impressive light show, and makes shock waves in the atmosphere (which do slow it down rather quickly)...but it never slows down to a piddly 200mph.
Also note that 200mph is a not-bad estimate for terminal velocity of a person, but since a rock has substantially higher mass per surface area (wing loading, if you will) the terminal velocity will be much much higher. (Basically, weight force is larger compared to drag force).
Now you are enlightened. : )
Why yes, I AM a rocket scientist!
I saw one, I was sitting on a stoop at 307 N 3rd in Philadelphia waiting for someone just looking around at buildings and the sky and to the NW this big fireball zoomed by; looked to be about a mile away - no sound. I hoped it was a meteor, but thought it might be a small plane or a burning fuel dump from a larger plane. It got pretty low so some of them may have hit. Real quick, just like a shooting star where if your looking the wrong place or blink you'd miss it.
It's a good thing they don't leave out any details that might turn out to be important...
It's 11pm, do you know what your deamons are up to?
Hey, just be happy it missed you
Are you kidding, how else am I suppose to get super powers. I mean the irradiated spider thing just doesn't work.
Jesus died for sombodies sins, but not mine.
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All I know about Bush is I had a good job when Clinton was president.
"At about 6:30 EST this evening, many meteors broke apart and headed south coming from Canada."
Just another example on why we need tighter controls on our Canadian border. Keep the meteors in Canada, where they belong!
I was going to put a sig here, but I had already submitted the message.
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