The sounds accompanying electrophonic burster meteors are characteristically described as being akin to short duration “ pops ” and staccato–like “ clicks ” .
As a phenomenon distinct from the enduring electrophonic sounds that occasionally accompany the passage and ablation of large meteoroids in the Earth ’ s lower atmosphere , the bursters have proved stubbornly difficult to explain .
A straightforward calculation demonstrates that in contradistinction to the enduring electrophonic sounds , the electrophonic bursters are not generated as a consequence of interactions between the meteoroid ablation plasma and the Earth ’ s geomagnetic field .
Here we present a novel and hitherto unrecorded model for the generation of short–duration pulses in an observer ’ s local electrostatic field .
Our model is developed according to the generation of a strong electric field across a shock wave propagating in a plasma .
In this sense , the electrophonic bursters are associated with the catastrophic disruption of large meteoroids in the Earth ’ s atmosphere .
We develop an equation for the description of the electric field strength in terms of the electron temperature and the electron volume density .
Also , by linking the electron line density to a meteor ’ s absolute visual magnitude , we obtain a lower limit to the visual magnitude of electrophonic burster meteors of M _ { \mathrm { v } } \approx - 6.6 , in good agreement with the available observations .