A little ramble through 19th century astronomy - Meteor of June 17th 1873

Academy Saturday 20^th June 1874 

DR. GALLE, of Breslau, has discussed at some length, in the Astronomische Nachrichten, all the available observations of the meteor of June 17, 1873, which passed over the north of Hungary, Austria, and Bohemia. It appears that it was first seen at a height of 100 miles above the earth, and that it disappeared when about twenty-one miles high, after having described a path of 290 miles in about ten seconds, giving a velocity in space of about twenty-eight miles in a second. his velocity is too great for a parabolic orbit, and it would seem, therefore, though there is some uncertainty about the observations of duration, that the meteor, at the time it was seen, was describing an hyperbola. But it is to be remarked that it was then under the influence of the earth’s attraction, and it would be necessary to calculate the effect of this, which Dr. Galle does not appear to have done, before drawing any conclusions as to the orbit described previous to the rencontre. It may very possibly have been peaceably circulating round the sun in an elongated ellipse, as other meteors are in the habit of doing, until it fell in with our planet.

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