Wednesday, September 25, 2024

Even More Slow Meteors


 Night before last I saw two more slow-moving meteors, one right after the other. The second one appeared to the right of Venus. It was almost as bright as Venus and toward the end of its flight it got a little brighter. It was white and it lasted about ten seconds. It that time it only moved about half a hand's length held at arm's length. Like all of these slow-moving ones it didn't have a trail.

 It was the first one that blew my mind. It lasted easily two minutes. It first appeared to be a really bright star in the sky but like most of them I thought it was an airplane at first, although it wasn't blinking and it appeared to be standing still for several seconds. If it were a star it shouldn't have been there. I wasn't sure what it was. 

 After several seconds I could see that it was moving slowly. It was on a trajectory that was almost straight toward me, which is why it appeared to be standing still. I watched it for a good two minutes until it blinked out. It was mostly white but it had tinges of red and yellow. So far it's the longest lasting of the slow ones I've seen. I'd say I've seen around 15 so far.

 I've told my theory on slow meteors before. I could be totally wrong and I've never heard anyone else say this, but I think it may be like playing pool. When you hit the object ball with the cue ball it appears to instantly go flying off toward the pocket, but if you were to slow it down you'd see that it takes a fraction of a second to get up to full speed. 

 When the object ball is struck it usually rolls backward at first, so it doesn't instantly reach full speed. It travels several inches before it starts rolling forward with full velocity. Maybe these slow-moving meteors have recently been struck and sent our way, and haven't had enough time and distance to be hauling ass like most meteors we see. 

 Most of the meteors we see have been traveling untold amounts of time and distance to get here, and they've been up to speed for a long time. Objects in the Oort Cloud for example that were struck and sent toward us would be relatively close, like a gimme in the side pocket. 

 I could be completely wrong but that's my guess. In any case it blows my mind to see these slow-moving meteors. There's no question they're meteors. At times they do resemble planes, helicopters and fireworks but they're not. I watch until they blink out and in most cases I also see them appear. I still have way better vision than most people and that includes night vision. 

 I've seen thousands of meteors and 99.9% of them zoom by and only last a few seconds. Back in 2015 a site I've been using since I first got on the internet, livemeteors.com, which tracks incoming meteors, started tracking meteors that lasted up a minute or more. That flipped some people out including myself, and I couldn't wait to see one in person, which I did the next year. 

 I know it's no big deal to most people but it's pretty cool to we sky-watchers. What's the story? Why are these meteors moving so slowly? Is it like a cosmic game of 8-ball or is it something else? We don't know, but it's dang sure interesting to sky-watchers. Heads-up. Earth, corner pocket. 

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