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View submission: What was this object
If that were a comet, it would probably be a few million miles away. The rocket might be a hundred. Huge difference in velocity to cover the same distance in the same amount of time.
Comment by GCoyote6 at 03/07/2024 at 13:10 UTC
0 upvotes, 1 direct replies
You are both partially correct. First, humans judge an object's speed based on angular rate-of-change and estimated distance. Humans suck at estimating distance. (This is a significant factor in UFO eye witness testimony.)
Comets dropping in from the Kuiper Belt typically cross Earth's orbit at speeds in excess of 25k kps. Comets that originate farther out can be going much faster.
A comet at the same distance as the Falcon 9 in the video would appear to cross the sky much faster and be much brighter as its outer layer burned off in the atmosphere. The rest would depend on its mass.
A small one would burn up just like hundreds of meteors do every day and not likely to survive such a close approach. A larger one that was farther out could look about the same from our POV without ever entering the atmosphere.
A comet large enough to cause serious damage would be visible to even amateur astronomers like myself months in advance at night and possibly during the day in the final few weeks of its approach.
Hope that helps.