NEBULOUS METEORS
- Subject: NEBULOUS METEORS
Probably the most common type of AMP, nebulous meteors do not have the sharply defined contours of most meteors. Instead, they appear fuzzy, often containing several bright central nuclei.
Nebulous meteors may well be highly friable objects that undergo several stages of disintegration. Fragmentation is not unusual in meteor astronomy – about half of all fireballs show signs of fragmenting due to thermal shock and high pressures – but the various components usually spread out. In nebulous meteors they tend to keep fairly close together. However, nebulous meteors last for only a couple of seconds, at most, unlike fireballs that may take some time to cross the sky. It could be that the individual fragments of a nebulous meteor would be seen to diverge if they were to remain luminous for long enough.
Copyright 1996 Philip M. Bagnall
Curved, Kinked, Spiral and Wavy Meteors
Meteor & Meteorite Definitions
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