Sandia scientist, colleague suggestSandia physicist Mark Boslough and Randy Gladstone of the Southwest Research Institute in San Antonio, Tex., have published a study that provides a less provocative -- but still scientifically interesting -- explanation for the so-called atmospheric holes. They may be plumes, not holes, and meteoroids may be the source. Their computational simulations, which make use of Sandia's shock physics code CTH and Boslough's earlier work with Sandia colleague Dave Crawford in successfully predicting the visible plumes from Comet Shoemaker-Levy 9's impact into Jupiter in 1994, suggest that the entry of ordinary meteoroids can form dark spots very similar to those reportedly observed by the satellite instruments... [T]hey believe that atomic oxygen, which is the source of the dayglow, is momentarily displaced by the passage of meteoroids. Normal air from lower altitudes contains oxygen in its molecular form and is black in the wavelength that the satellite sees. They propose that when a stony object as small as 50 centimeters across collides with the atmosphere and plunges into the lower layers, it ejects a very thin plume of this "black" air to as high as 1,000 kilometers. It is these dark plumes, they suggest, that are being detected by the satellites. Their work is preliminary and they acknowledge that the hypothesis doesn't account for the observed high rate of dark hole formation. But they say if they can show their idea is correct for large meteoroids, they will look into the possibility that small ones have a similar effect.
meteor plumes causing
transient dark spots in upper atmosphere
Sandia National Laboratories
February 10, 1998
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If this theory is to be believed, wouldn't there necessarily have to be a fireball when something as hard as a meteoroid enters the atmosphere? Maybe I'm missing something obvious here.
FGS