Meteor procession

A meteor procession occurs when an Earth-grazing meteor breaks apart, and the fragments travel across the sky in the same path. According to physicist Donald Olson, only a few occurrences are known, including:[1]

  • Great Meteor of August 18, 1783[1][2]
  • Meteor procession of July 20, 1860; believed by Donald Olson to be the event referred to in Walt Whitman's poem Year of Meteors, 1859-60.[3][4]
  • Meteor procession of December 21, 1876; sighted over Kansas, Missouri, Illinois, Indiana, Ohio, Pennsylvania.[5]
  • Meteor procession of February 9, 1913; a chain of slow, large meteors moving from northwest to southeast, sighted over North America, particularly in Canada, the North Atlantic and the Tropical South Atlantic.
Oil painting by Frederic Church, The Meteor of 1860

See also

References
  1. Falk, Dan. Forensic astronomer solves Walt Whitman mystery, NewScientist, June 1, 2010
  2. Notes and Queries, Journal of the Royal Astronomical Society of Canada, Vol. 8, p.221-2
  3. Images of Harper's Weekly front page story
  4. 150-year-old meteor mystery solved
  5. Report of the annual meeting British Association for the Advancement of Science 1877 pages 149-153.
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