# Last night's meteor storm: a question...science Dopers?

**URL:** <https://boards.straightdope.com/t/last-nights-meteor-storm-a-question-science-dopers/94065>\
**Category:** Factual Questions\
**Created:** [November 18, 2001, 5:02pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/last-nights-meteor-storm-a-question-science-dopers/94065 "2001-11-18T17:02:18Z")\
**Posts on this page:** 5\
**Page:** 1

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**Author:** ![Fenris](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/fenris/32/498_2.png) [@Fenris](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Fenris)\
**Post date:** [November 18, 2001, 5:02pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/last-nights-meteor-storm-a-question-science-dopers/94065/1 "2001-11-18T17:02:18Z")

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Hey, **Bad Astronomer** , **Podkayne** , or anyone else:

Last night’s meteor storm…I noticed something weird. The meteors would come in “clumps”

Instead of a fairly regular “flow”, what I noticed was that even at the peak, the meteors would fall in groups of four or 5 or 13 and then there’d be a lull for a minute or so and then another batch.

Did whatever comet leave this stuff behind in chunks or are my observational skills off?

Fenris

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**Author:** ![Boyo\_Jim](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/b/87869e/32.png) [@Boyo\_Jim](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Boyo_Jim)\
**Post date:** [November 18, 2001, 5:29pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/last-nights-meteor-storm-a-question-science-dopers/94065/2 "2001-11-18T17:29:15Z")

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Often that’s a single piece broken up when it hits the atmosphere. Different materials in the rock will heat and react differently from others, leading to splitting up. If you see something like a handful of pebbles flying in a “bunch”, it’s probably this.

However, if you’re talking about “time” clusters, when there were surges of meteors NOT related spacially, then I don’t have a clue.

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**Author:** ![Tranquilis](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/tranquilis/32/3639_2.png) [@Tranquilis](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Tranquilis)\
**Post date:** [November 18, 2001, 5:46pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/last-nights-meteor-storm-a-question-science-dopers/94065/3 "2001-11-18T17:46:26Z")

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> [@](#):
>
> **Did whatever comet leave this stuff behind in chunks or are my observational skills off?**

Likely just so: Smallish clusters and chunks were left behind in the comet’s path. It’s rather unlikely that the matertial would be evenly distributed, under any circumstances, and I saw at least a dozen meteors that calved, leaving closely spaced trails. One spectacular one left a broad streak across 30+ degrees of the sky, leaving a trail of sparks, and it calved just above the horizon, with both daughters detonating almost immediately. Stunning!

Your observational skills remain intact, for now.

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**Author:** ![donotprodme](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/d/43a26b/32.png) [@donotprodme](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/donotprodme)\
**Post date:** [November 18, 2001, 8:52pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/last-nights-meteor-storm-a-question-science-dopers/94065/4 "2001-11-18T20:52:07Z")

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You guys got lucky. I was out in the wood and unfortunately I saw only 1 meteor. What a gip. The plus of this meteor though is that I think it made it to Earth. It seemed really low. I was curiouse if any meteors did land.

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**Author:** ![Fenris](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/fenris/32/498_2.png) [@Fenris](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Fenris)\
**Post date:** [November 19, 2001, 4:36am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/last-nights-meteor-storm-a-question-science-dopers/94065/5 "2001-11-19T04:36:29Z")

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Thanks for the answers!