Meteor skipping off the atmosphere or something different?

a reply to: JimOberg

...The size of the corridor depends on the three competing constraints—
deceleration, heating, and accuracy. For example, if the vehicle strays
below the lower boundary (undershoots), it will experience too much drag,
slowing down rapidly and heating up too quickly. On the other hand, if the
vehicle enters above the upper boundary (overshoots), it won’t experience
enough drag and may literally skip off the atmosphere, back into space...

Link

You being pedantic Jim

originally posted by: carsforkids
a reply to: Soylent Green Is People

If that were the case, then the trajectory may not be curved at all.

Brilliant, I bet you nailed it Holmes.

Looking back I see that dragonridr mentioned the fisheye before me.

a reply to: Soylent Green Is People

Are you saying I don't read all the posts? Because if you are why
call attention to the obvious?

I'm kidding good on both of you royal members.

Somewhat reminiscent of the Great Daylight Fireball of 1972.

a reply to: Soylent Green Is People

And I mentioned the type of lens used two posts before, although I didn't mentioned specifically a fish-eye lens.

originally posted by: Jubei42
a reply to: JimOberg

You being pedantic Jim

Granted. I sat at a console where if you waxed poetic, people could die. Cut me some slack. [grin]

originally posted by: Blue Shift
Somewhat reminiscent of the Great Daylight Fireball of 1972.

That music was excessively creepy for no reason at all.

originally posted by: dragonridr

originally posted by: kiliker30
a reply to: JimOberg
So its saying an object 20-40 centermeters hit the atmosphere fast enough to start burning but didn't slow down at all from any of that? And passed right through and kept on going?
20-40cm??
So essentially a tiny pebble was able to punch through the earths atmosphere unaffected by our 3g gravity pull. Ok.
Either I've been lied to about physics all my life or that is a ridiculous story.

First im not sure what 3g gravity is so i will just ignore that. Let's discuss gravity you seem to be under the impression the size makes a difference it doesnt the faster an object moves the more energy it has. For example a bullet remains in the air until its velocity slows enough for it to hit the ground.

If an object is moving fast enough it will always leave earth. In fact it needs to travel faster then 11.19 km/s. So this means as long as its faster it will never return to earth.

Just so you know on an average asteroids travel between 18 km/s to about 30 km/s needless to say they are moving really fast. The fastest i coud find was 72 km/s needess to say not something you want hitting us.

All great points. We can close this thread, seeing as it is well explained thanks to you guys.
It seems these things can and do happen.