On Fri, 3 Jan 2003, Brent Watson wrote:
Using the site suggested by Chris Clark, and assuming the density of air to be about 80% of the sea level value, I get a terminal velocity of 32.43 m/sec.
So you're saying that a bowling ball would freefall at "only" 72 miles per hour? Something intuitively doesn't compute there, because if anything I'd expect a bowling ball to have a higher terminal velocity than a skydiver freefalling in a flat "belly to earth" position (at a t.v. of about 110-120 mph (~ 50 m/s)). What values did you use for ball radius and density to reach the 32 m/s conclusion?
I suspect that the velocity of a meteor will be up to twice that amount because of its irregular shape and the fact that it is decelerating.
Several ostensibly-authoritative web sites claim that most meteors (those below a certain mass, that is) lose all of their "cosmic velocity" high in the earth's atmosphere and then begin "normal" acceleration under gravity until the object's atmospheric terminal velocity is reached. In other words, meteors have long since stopped decelerating by the time of impact. A good exposition can be found on this page: http://www.amsmeteors.org/fireball/faqf.html#12 But to heck with all the numbers: all I wanna know is how many bowling balls we can safely load into a 182. :-) Patrick: when have you scheduled the official bowling-ball "drop day"? :-) Chris