Wilbert Smith Archives Files Box 1130 16 1130-16-p032

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170 SMITHSONIAN CONTRIBUTIONS TO ASTROPHYSICS The average mass » of a meteor atom is 3.8X10-* g (Opik, 1958). Therefore, at v=32.2 kms“, we obtain 8=0.010; 7, 6 X10-4, The errors in 7, and J,/q cause an uncertainty in 8 of a factor of 3. The values of 7, and 6 deduced by Davis and Hall (1963) were based on Opik’s late evaluation of the luminous effi- ciency and are consequently about three times larger. A preliminary result of a study in progress on the dependence on velocity of the ionizing...