EarthSky’s meteor shower guide
Sometimes, after a meteor shower, people report hearing the meteors. Some exceptionally bright meteors have been reported as being accompanied by a low hissing sound – like bacon sizzling.
Ten tips for watching the Geminid meteor shower
Image Credit: Tucker Hammerstrom
For years, professional astronomers dismissed the notion of sounds from meteors as fiction. Typically, a meteor burns up about 100 kilometers – or 60 miles – above the Earth’s surface. Because sound travels so much more slowly than light does, the rumblings of a particularly large meteor shouldn’t be heard for several minutes after the meteor’s sighting. A meteor 100 kilometers high would boom about five minutes after it appears. Such an object is called a “sonic” meteor. The noise it makes is related to the sonic boom caused by a faster-than-sound aircraft.
But what about meteors that seem to make a sound at the same time you are seeing them? These meteors would be seen and heard simultaneously. Is this possible? Astronomers now say it is possible. They speak of “electrophonic meteors.” The explanation is that meteors give off very low frequency radio waves, which travel at the speed of light. Even though you can’t directly hear radio waves, these waves can cause physical objects on the Earth’s surface to vibrate. The radio waves cause a sound – which our ears might interpret as the sizzle of a meteor shooting by.
Hi,
I’ve been fortunate enough to witness 3 meteors at differnet points in my life that were audible. I could hear and see each meteor in tandem. They all had the same sizzling/crackling sound, however I’m convinced I was within hundreds of feet from the actual meteor when it finally fizzled out (none struck the ground). Two of them broke up into peices sending glowing embers outwards that quickly fizzled out.
Is it not possible these objects had reached their terminal velocity, and were therefore travelling much more slowly by the time I saw them, and the sizzling sound I heard was truly the sound of the object passing/burning through the air? According to Dr. Colins description of electrophonic meteors, it sounds like physical objects around me were making the noise, however I swear the sound was coming from the meteor itself.
Anyway, I’ll continue to keep my eyes to the skies for the next one.
thx,
kevin
I too witnessed a LOW flying meteor flying north to south over Los Angeles in the early morning hours in the winter of 1999. The sound was unmistakenably coming from that meteor as I (along with other drivers on the 60 fwy traveling westbound) slowed to observe this massive burning rock! The power that drove it sounded like it was rotating its power source as it barreled through the air. It a nutshell, I held my breath just to take in the power of the cosmos, so close I thought it possible to hitch a ride!!!
I too, saw, and heard a meteor during the Perseids shower of 2009. I am not mistaken, I definately saw, and heard, at the exact same time the meteor travelling horizontaly from ENE to WSW. I make a point of finding out the best nights for each shower, and barring any cloudy nights, I am out there, no matter what the time! I find these showers truly facinating!
Johan August Udden, who lived in my house in Austin until he died in 1937, was the first to discover that meteor showers made noise. He published articles about it. He made so many discoveries in many different fields of science that he was called “The Nature King.”
I 100% heard a meteor in the mountains of Colorado. The sound was similar to the Doppler effect. I was high in the mountains laying down and heard this sound from far away, looking into the sky a large “shooting star” went past and the sound followed after the sighting. Astronomers that deny this possibility are completely wrong.
“…like bacon sizzling.”
That is because bacon is a natural binding force in the universe. It’s delicious sound can only be emulated by the most primal and natural of events, and even those pale in comparison to the symphony of perfection that is actual frying bacon.
I feel confident in assuring you that when the grand unification theory is fully calculated, bacon will stand at the center, as rightful king of the universe.
Rob … ha! I think you might be right.
Rob, your comment is funny!
I will need made to order fb artwork created up, don’t you accomplish that sort of design and style perform by any likelihood?
My husband and I saw what we believed to have been a SONIC METEOR last nite around 10:15 pm… July 4th. The shape of the meteor was an imperfect circle, LARGE in size, orange glow, moving slowly from east to west, eventually got smaller, as it moved across the sky for approx. 1 minute, in front of my home in Fayetteville, Arkansas. We thought it was a firework through the trees, but quickly realized it was not. It was a meteor! I saw one meteor in 2008, that was green, blue, had a long, whitish tail, VERY sparkly , and it was HUGE! It was the most beautiful thing I’d ever seen in our sky! besides the northern lights, which I have yet to witness! Can someone put that on you tube? I love earth sky! thanks!
Meteors can also affect radio waves or should i say deflect and scatter them in such a way that you can hear it over a radio. Meteor burst communications as it is commonly referred to by Amateur Radio operators as well as Radio dx’ers.
When a meteor travels through our atmosphere they begin to break up leaving a ionized trail of particles behind them, this trail tends to reflect radio waves carrying the signal over 1000 miles past it’s intended target. Amateur radio operators take advantage of this ionized trail to communicate over much larger distances using directional antennas and 2-way radio’s. Think of a meteor as a mirror ball which is made up of hundreds of tiny mirrors, now shine a spotlight on that mirror ball while observing each point of light reflected out away from the mirror ball. Each one of those points of light has the same potential for communications in that space it occupies, in this case light which you can see with your eyes. Now imagine each point of light is a radio wave carrying a message from point A to point B over 1200 miles away.
Sometimes FM radio stations can be heard 100′s of miles away in other states in much the same way but the burst is usually short lived resulting in a very small window of opportunity for the listener to catch this rare dx phenomena.