Abstract
ABOUT 5.45 on the evening of the 15th inst. a meteor, larger than Jupiter, but not so bright, appeared under Capella, and took a horizontal course, till it disappeared at about the same distance below the terminal star in the tail of Ursa Major. I never saw so long a flight. Twice in its course it disappeared or became very faint. Near the end it broke into two, the second part following the former. At any computation of its distance its flight in the upper regions of the atmosphere must have been in an enormously extended path. My son, who was with me, conjectured that its disappearance might be owing to its passing through a deep trough, or hollow of a wave, in the surface of the atmospheric ocean; in which the diminution of the friction might occasion a loss of incandescence; a suggestion rather favoured by the repetition of the phenomenon. Perhaps the meteor was only making ducks and drakes.
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HIGGINS, H. Meteor. Nature 25, 78–79 (1881). https://doi.org/10.1038/025078f0
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DOI: https://doi.org/10.1038/025078f0
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