Monday, 7 January 2013

meteorite - Do massive bolide entries coincide with meteor showers?

Meteor showers are associated with dust trails left by comets, There are larger clumps, but most cometary dust is pretty small.



Most large impactors are small asteroids: This was certainly the case in Chelyabinsk, and is the likely the case with Tunguska. Asteroids are not associated with cometary orbits and the impacts are sporadic, not concentrated in showers. Each year there are 10s of significant bolides They don't correlate with meteor showers.



(Tunguska did occur during a regular shower, the Beta Taurids, and some have hypothesised that it may have be an fragment of Comet Encke, but analysis of the impact site suggests that this was a coincidence.)

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