ACP Atmospheric Chemistry and Physics ACP 1680-7324 Copernicus GmbH Göttingen, Germany 10.5194/acp-4-471-2004 The velocity of meteoroids: a historical review Williams I. P. 1 Astronomy Unit, Queen Mary, University of London, Mile End Road, London E1 4NS, UK 23 03 2004 4 2 471 475 This is an open-access article ditributed under the terms of the Creative Commons Attribution License, which permits unrestricted use, distribution, and reproduction in any medium, provided the original author and source are credited. This article is available from http://www.atmos-chem-phys.net/4/471/2004/acp-4-471-2004.html The full text article is available as a PDF file from http://www.atmos-chem-phys.net/4/471/2004/acp-4-471-2004.pdf

Determining the velocity of meteoroids as they enter the Earth's atmosphere is very important since the value is fundamental in calculating the orbit of the meteoroid and hence eventually its origin. We describe early attempts at this determination and highlight problems that exist today.