comet sighting
Discussion
4Lmike said:
just saw a comet fly through the air at what looked about cloud height. i was near Marlow at the time, it was pretty spectacular. please tell me someone else saw it??
More likely a meteor than a comet - millions strike the earth every day. What time was it? Could have been a satellite?nammynake said:
4Lmike said:
just saw a comet fly through the air at what looked about cloud height. i was near Marlow at the time, it was pretty spectacular. please tell me someone else saw it??
More likely a meteor than a comet - millions strike the earth every day. What time was it? Could have been a satellite?
AndyFoo said:
Comet as in the plane, or as in the large mile across rock that killed the dinosaurs (for those who don't read the good book)?
I'm just up the road from you, outwards Stokey, will PM as i'm very interested in your work!
No flying Comet aircraft any more - sadly.I'm just up the road from you, outwards Stokey, will PM as i'm very interested in your work!
Comets move across the sky VERY slopwly so you would have to watch one for HOURS before you noticed any visible movement. There are also no naked eye comets visible at the moment so it definitely wasn't a comet.
What you almost definitely saw was a meteor - a small rock or even piece of dust entering the earth's atmosphere from space at high speed (up to 100,000 mph). The intense atmospheric friction encountered heats the dust particle up rapidly so that it basically vapourises in seconds and emits a tremendous amount of light very quickly.
They are not unusual to see - but fun to catch all the same.
Watch out for the Perseid meteor shower around August 12/13.
Almost definitely a meteor then.
On odd occasions, you might catch a satellite or piece of space debris re-entering the earth's atmosphere and burning up. These tend to move across the sky a fair bit more slowly than a meteor because the entry speed is slower - 17,5000 mph compared to 60,000 to 100,000 mph.
There's always lots of "sky action" to see up there. If only people looked up a bit more often.
On odd occasions, you might catch a satellite or piece of space debris re-entering the earth's atmosphere and burning up. These tend to move across the sky a fair bit more slowly than a meteor because the entry speed is slower - 17,5000 mph compared to 60,000 to 100,000 mph.
There's always lots of "sky action" to see up there. If only people looked up a bit more often.
Ozzie Osmond said:
Eric Mc said:
No flying Comet aircraft any more - sadly.
No Nimrod variants still kicking around? (AWACS) There was a fuss about a British one disintegrating over Afghanistan a while back.As for true Comets, the last flying example was Comet Mk IV XS235 "Canopus" which was operated on test duties out of Boscombe Down until the 1990s. She is kept in ground running order at Bruntingthorpe
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