Randy Halverson is a photographer who makes stunning time lapse videos of the night sky (like Tempest Milky Way and Plains Milky Way; seriously, if you haven’t seen those, go watch them now). He’s currently in the process of making a new video, and in one of the frames he happened to catch a bright meteor, a bit of cosmic fluff burning up as it rammed through our atmosphere. What’s neat about this particular incident is that the meteor left behind a glowing streak that lasted for over half an hour!
You can see it there, the red twisty worm at the upper left, across the glow of the Milky Way [click to enbolidenate.]
Technically, that’s called a persistent train, and it’s not actually smoke. As a meteoroid (the actual solid chunk of material) blasts through the air, it ionizes the gases, stripping electrons from their parent atoms. As the electrons slowly recombine with the atoms, they emit light — this is how neon signs glow, as well as giant star-forming nebulae in space. The upper-level winds blowing that high (upwards of 100 km/60 miles) create the twisting, fantastic shapes in the train. The actual details of how this works in meteor trains are not well understood, mainly because they are so difficult to spot and study. It’s hard to point a telescope at a position in the sky when you don’t know where or when a meteor will pass through!
Here’s the frame of the time lapse Randy took that shows the meteor as it burned up (again, click to embiggen). Note that in the hi-res shot you can already see the train; that formed after the meteor was gone, but in this time exposure you can see both simultaneously.
I’ll note it’s not really friction that causes a meteor to burn up. Most of the heating is due to the meteoroid’s hypersonic passage through air, which compresses the gas, heating it up violently. The heat melts the rock (or metal) in the meteoroid, which then blows off, leaving behind a train that fades rapidly. But the glow from the ionized gas takes much longer to decay, leaving the persistent train.
Very cool, and very pretty. I can’t wait to see the video when Randy’s done with it!
Image credit: Randy Halverson, from his site DakotaLapse, used with permission. You can follow Randy on Google+ as well.
Related posts:
- Another jaw-dropping time lapse video: Tempest
- Gorgeous Milky Way time lapse
- The fiery descent of Atlantis… seen from space!
- Meteor propter hoc
October 2nd, 2011 at 12:22 pm
This is an awesome catch. I love Randy’s work!
October 2nd, 2011 at 12:23 pm
For some reason this reminded me of superman’s arrival on Earth
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=D7SvTmRllmk
at least robot chicken’s interpretation of it.
October 2nd, 2011 at 1:15 pm
1/2 hour? OMFFSM, I once, and only once watched a meteor that lasted for around a minute, it was wonderful, a thin line of light drawn in the 1/4 of the sky. Other than that, only average ones, cool but so fast and short-living…
October 2nd, 2011 at 2:21 pm
cardoso, the meteor didn’t last a half hour, the persistent train did. The meteor was only in 1 frame of the 30 second exposures of the timelapse.
October 2nd, 2011 at 2:27 pm
Maybe someone can explain the difference between the compression of gas heating up the meteorite and friction. Phil very clearly states that it’s not friction but compression – I’m just not seeing a huge amount of difference about the two in this case. Maybe it requires splitting hairs (which is fine) – just hoping for a little definition. Thanks.
October 2nd, 2011 at 2:45 pm
@5 Bill
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=4qe1Ueifekg
This is an adiabatic process (heat exchange is zero)
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Adiabatic_process
And when something is compressed like that it can get very very hot.
October 2nd, 2011 at 7:55 pm
I’m curious though, if it’s ionized air, why is it a red hue, when air ionizes blue? That train would be more along the lines of ionized hydrogen, if the color rendition is true.
But, thanks, Phil. Never saw a persistent train before, out of quite a few meteor trains over the years.
I DID see a nice green fireball once, heading west to east and breaking up over New Jersey. From the rapid motion, it had to have made it into fairly dense air to cross the sky so quickly.
October 2nd, 2011 at 10:17 pm
[...] Bad Astronomer on the Meteor and persistent train [...]
October 3rd, 2011 at 6:19 am
Where were the photos taken? I can’t id the vegetation.
Heating upon compression is what make diesel engines run.
Friction results from physical. Think of the photos of jets breaking the sound barrier. That’s compression.
October 3rd, 2011 at 7:21 am
[...] A meteor’s lingering tale (blogs.discovermagazine.com) [...]
October 3rd, 2011 at 8:42 am
Question – is a persistent train indicative of the size of the meteor, or is it more indicative of its composition? Or some other factor?
October 3rd, 2011 at 9:18 am
I wonder how visually persistent the trail really was. A 30 second exposure is bound to show things that are too dim to the unaided eye.
October 3rd, 2011 at 11:55 am
@9 Cometkazie:
From the maker’s website dakotalapse.com it appears that most of his pictures are from the states surrounding and in South Dakota. Among the tags he put onto these particular pictures it appears that he was in South Dakota and that the trees are cottonwood trees.
@12 Vision Engineer:
I saw a persistent trail from a Leonid several years ago while in the Lake Mead Recreational Area to which I drove during a visit to Las Vegas. The trail was visible for over two minutes before the winds at altitude dispersed it although I suspect that much of its visibility was due to the city glow from Vegas. Perhaps the trail in these pictures was visible for so long because of the Moon which is washing out the sky at the bottom of the frame in combination with winds which coincidentally did not disperse the trail as quickly as mine.
October 3rd, 2011 at 5:30 pm
Here’s a rather dramatic one that lasted over an hour…
http://nicmosis.as.arizona.edu:8000/ECLIPSE_WEB/METEOR_TRAINS/PERSISTENT_METEOR_TRAINS.html
October 4th, 2011 at 11:38 am
[...] is from the meteor itself, and the dying whistling sound is from the ionized gas it leaves behind, which slowly recombines and fades.” [Bad Astronomy] Advertisement Eco World Content From Across The Internet. Featured [...]
October 8th, 2011 at 6:04 am
Every day how many tons of Toxic waste drops from space and is burnt in our atmosphere? Don’t tell me, let me guess. You don’t know! And what is that crop? again.
October 31st, 2011 at 6:37 am
[...] The second shot is part of the clip with the Meteor with a persistent train. Featured on my site and on Bad Astronomy on Oct. 2nd [...]
February 16th, 2012 at 11:36 am
[...] lasted over a half hour in the cameras frame. Phil Plait wrote an article about the phenomena here http://blogs.discovermagazine.com/badastronomy/2011/10/02/a-meteors-lingering-tale/ There is a second Meteor with a much shorter persistent train at 2:51 in the video. This one [...]
February 16th, 2012 at 12:10 pm
[...] lasted over a half hour in the cameras frame. Phil Plait wrote an article about the phenomena here blogs.discovermagazine.com/badastronomy/2011/10/02/a-meteors-lingering-tale/ There is a second Meteor with a much shorter persistent train at 2:51 in the video. This one [...]
February 16th, 2012 at 2:21 pm
[...] the night skies, aurorae, and the Milky Way. A meteor makes an appearance too, its so-called persistent train lingered in the frame for over 30 minutes but lasts a fleeting second in the video. Temporal [...]
February 16th, 2012 at 6:09 pm
[...] lasted over a half hour in the cameras frame. Phil Plait wrote an article about the phenomena here http://blogs.discovermagazine.com/badastronomy/2011/10/02/a-meteors-lingering-tale/ There is a second Meteor with a much shorter persistent train at 2:51 in the video. This one [...]
February 22nd, 2012 at 12:46 am
[...] lasted over a half hour in the cameras frame. Phil Plait wrote an article about the phenomena herehttp://blogs.discovermagazine.com/badastronomy/2011/10/02/a-meteors-lingering-tale/ There is a second Meteor with a much shorter persistent train at 2:51 in the video. This one [...]
February 22nd, 2012 at 12:23 pm
[...] which lasted over a half hour in the cameras frame. Phil Plait wrote an article about the phenomena here. There is a second Meteor with a much shorter persistent train at 2:51 in the video. This one [...]
February 23rd, 2012 at 12:11 pm
[...] and 3 second intervals. Keep your eyes peeled at 53 seconds: you get to see a shooting star with a Persistent Train, which is the ionized gases left behind as the meteor burns up in our [...]
February 27th, 2012 at 6:37 am
[...] dall’altra. Intorno ai 53 secondi: si inizia a vedere una stella cadente con una scia persistente, che è il gas ionizzato lasciato dalla meteora che si incendia quando entra nella nostra [...]
February 27th, 2012 at 9:48 am
I saw one of these meteor trails once in New Mexico. The meteor also exploded, making an odd ‘POP’ sound.
February 27th, 2012 at 10:12 pm
[...] Go full screen this is a good one & here are the filmmakers comments on what to watch for: At :53 and 2:17 seconds into the video you see a Meteor with a Persistent Train. Which is ionizing gases, which lasted over a half hour in the cameras frame. Phil Plait wrote an article about the phenomena here: blogs.discovermagazine.com/badastronomy/2011/10/02/a-meteors-lingering-tale/ [...]
March 6th, 2012 at 9:43 am
[...] Ionisiert der Meteor die Atmosphäre, die beim Rekombinieren Licht Emmitiert. Genaueres kann man im Discover-Magazin [...]
March 8th, 2012 at 1:49 am
[...] demi-heure dans le cadre des caméras. Phil Plait a écrit un article sur les phénomènes iciblogs.discovermagazine.com/badastronomy/2011/10/02/a-meteors-lingering-tale / Il ya un deuxième météore une traînée beaucoup plus courte persistante à 2:51 dans la [...]