Talk:Meteor

Definitions
N. Great job on the definitions. It's so rare to see these concepts presented accurately.
 * Concur. But, is a meteor the visible path? Or is it the actual piece of rock?
 * As defined at the moment the subsequent sentence A meteor striking the Earth seems wrong.
 * Oxford and Cambridge dictionaries say it's the rock. Others say the trail. --Eddie 18:59, 7 Jan 2005 (UTC)

meteor is the path
Meteor is really only the visible path, the light. The own word meteor comes from word meteo (in Greece something like atmosphere or something like that); meteorology is a science about meteors. It was believed meteor is appearence in atmosphere, like lighting or rain. --195.113.24.190 09:00, 10 May 2005 (UTC)

"Hygro-meteors" are raindrops John Elder 02:13, 13 Jun 2005 (UTC)

Green Fireballs - request for help
Would someone please check the accuracy of Green Fireballs. In particular, it concludes "Green fireballs continue to be reported now and then, but their origins remain a mystery." According to Watch the Skys, by Curtis Peeples, 27-29, there was a two-day meeting about them in 1949 which concluded that they were a natural phenomenon (a meteor, I presume). Thak you, Bubba73 (talk), 00:12, 4 December 2005 (UTC)

Is it really the path?
According to OED the meteor, technically, is any atmospheric phenomenon (hence meteorology). OED also identifies it as the rock that, as a result of friction with the atmosphere becomes "sufficiently incandescent to be visible". In other words it is the visible, observable phenomenon, and not the path. --Tim.spears 04:55, 9 February 2006 (UTC)


 * answers.com list of definitions include: American Heritage (A bright trail or streak), Columbia University Press (appearance of a small particle flying through space that interacts with the earth's upper atmosphere), Houghton Mifflin Company and WordNet (streak of light in the sky). Most simplify the cause of the light to "friction". I think OED has it wrong as meteors and fireball photographs show a width (up to 2 degrees at 90 kilometres is about 3 kilometres!) far in excess of the size of the causing rock. I doubt a rock the size of a grapefruit (causing a large fireball) would be visible at all if the light only came from the hot rock. However, "meteor path" appears often enough to imply that meteor indicates the large glowing plasma around the rock (caused by ram pressure), and as you say, not the path. It moves fast enough to appear as a streak or path. Maybe they are synonymous? -213.219.160.101 01:59, 23 April 2006 (UTC)

content error
The main article for "meteor" states that the visibility of the meteor comes from the "ram pressure" rather than friction. One of the pictures captions contradicts this by stating that the visibility is from friction.

About http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Image:Asteroid_2004_FH.gif
As it is said in the file properties, the streak in the animated gif it is not a meteor(as the article says) but a satellite. These images are taken with a CCD during certain time (>10s), so the meteor (lasts <1s) can appear only in one frame and not cut in 2 of them as in the video.

80.103.119.39 08:54, 31 August 2006 (UTC)

Inappropriate comment?
I may be confused, but under the "Meteorites in History" section, the following text/quotes (I'm not certain what it is) appear(bold lettering added by me to emphasize):

Meteorites are flying silicone breast implants that have escaped from the atmosphere and hurtle towards the earth at extreme speeds, up to 25 mph in certain situations. Erin Winn is sexy, she has been instrumental in shaping the surface of the Earth, the moon and numerous other planets and heavenly bodies.

and

Have you ever seen Back to the Future? I think people can do that Kevin. I think people are ahead of us. HUH?

Can someone explain how this is related to meteors?

Also, it is my understanding that the plural of meteor is meteors, and that meteors and meteorites are different by definition. Then shouldn't the section be named "Meteors In History", or am I confusing something? - Milcho 13:23, 9 February 2007 (UTC)
 * That's known as graffiti (at best) As for the history question - you are always free to improve the article. I'd state that what the relationship is between meteorites and meteors are - perhaps meteorites are due their own article?--Smkolins 23:51, 18 February 2007 (UTC)

Merge proposals from meteoroid and bolide
There is considerable overlap between these articles. There is little extra information it the meteoroid and bolide articles so it would be logical to merge them into this article. (I don't suggest the same for meteorite because that article is fairly long and stands alone.) Rsduhamel 16:44, 18 March 2007 (UTC)

Went ahead and did the merge, except I thought it was more appropriate to merge meteor into meteoroid. Rsduhamel 21:21, 18 March 2007 (UTC)

other related content
probably should add content related to the cultural expressions related to meteors - I'm thinking of religious scriptures referring to meteors, music groups, colloquialisms, all that kind of stuff... Also should note meteors can occur on any planet with an atmosphere and mention details known of Mars and any other planets if details exist in the literature. I know the meteor shower entry mentions some of these details. I also see email references to background meteor rates of 1/night per viewing site (or is it 1/hr?) and the "antehelion" source for some of these....--Smkolins 14:58, 19 March 2007 (UTC)

Disambiguation Page?
Would a Disambiguation page be necessary for referencing the irish mobile operator Meteor(http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Meteor_(mobile) )? Explosive Cornflake (talk) 21:54, 30 September 2010 (UTC)