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Listening to Leonids

Posted by michael on from the ground-control-to-major-tom dept.

Bill Kendrick writes: "An interesting article was posted by NASA about reports of people hearing Leonids as they burnt up in the atmosphere. And not 5 minutes later, like you'd expect, but instantly. Apparently this is thanks to very low frequency radio signals given off by the meteors as they burn."

2 of 136 comments (clear)

  1. Douglas Addams, froody dude, now turned prophet? by SpeedBump0619 · · Score: 2, Insightful

    so...since the Vogons can now have their freaky communications device, and we *already* have babelfish what are we waiting for next?

    I guess I'll hold out for the frictionless car.

  2. Re:Another question about the shower... by serutan · · Score: 3, Insightful

    It's because the meteorites don't all hit the Earth head-on. As the planet moves through the cloud of particles, it plows straight into some and misses others entirely. A few pass by close enough to get captured by the Earth's gravity and spiral in. The direction they are moving when they burn up depends on where they were when they got captured (which could be over the poles) and how much of an orbit they manage to make before hitting the atmosphere. So they can actually streak in from any direction.