THERE’S good news and bad news for sky watchers who insist that meteors can
be heard from the ground. For the first time, researchers have recorded sounds
picked up as meteors blaze through the atmosphere. But their recordings could
undermine the leading theory of why they make a noise.
For centuries, people claim to have heard pops, crackles, whooshes and
sizzles coinciding with meteor falls. One mystery is why there is no time delay,
as it should take several minutes for the sound to travel many kilometres to the
ground.
In an attempt to nail down the phenomenon, a team…
