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Show AH Meteors Cold When They Reach the Earth Meteor authorities, due no doubt to the readiness of ordinary folk to believe practically anything of stones from the sky, are among the most skeptical people on earth. Recently we reported their disbelief in yarns about near-collisions between meteors mete-ors and airplanes. Now It must be revealed that they also put no credence cre-dence in yarns about houses, haystacks hay-stacks or other objects being set afire by them. Dr. Charles C. Wylie of the University Uni-versity of Iowa, writing in Popular Astronomy, says there has never been an authenticated instance of a meteor setting fire to anything. Moreover, More-over, the popular idea that meteors are incandescent when they strike the earth is likewise an error. Their surfaces may reach Incandescence for a few seconds high up in the atmosphere, but they are soon slowed down so much that passage through the air cools rather than heats them. They stop glowing at an altitude of several miles, and are cold when they strike. Literary Digest. |