Recent fireballs photographed in central Europe

doi:10.1016/0032-0633(94)90027-2

Planetary and Space Science

Volume 42, Issue 2, February 1994, Pages 157-162

https://doi.org/10.1016/0032-0633(94)90027-2 Get rights and content

Abstract

The atmospheric trajectories, velocities, brightnesses and orbits of 17 exceptional fireballs photographed in central Europe during 1990–1993 are presented. This survey contains, among others, one Earth-grazing fireball, two fireballs with predicted multiple meteorite fall and four well defined fireballs which are members of major meteor streams (Geminid, Quadrantid, Southern Taurid and α Capricornid). The operation of the Czech part of the European Fireball Network is briefly described.

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The F-values of atomic Na and Mg of the Geminids are similar to F-values summarized by Koten et al. (2004), which suggest that the Geminid meteors seem to have the strongest meteoroid tensile strength, while the Leonid meteors seem to be the most fragile (Table 4). It has been also suggested that the meteoroid bulk densities vary from 0.4 g cm−3 for Leonids to 3–4 g cm−3 for the Geminids having small, almost zero, porosity (Babadzhanov and Kokhirova, 2009; Spurný, 1994). Fig. 12 shows the relationship between abundances of Na, Mg, Fe and integrated spectral luminosity of the Geminids.
Sodium is a perfect indicator to investigate the volatility within meteoroid composition. Spectroscopic observations of the Geminid meteors were carried out using modern high sensitive large format CMOS cameras. 149 visible spectra of the Geminid meteors observed in 2017 and 2018 were analyzed by a newly developed procedure. The variation of Na, Mg and Fe during meteor ablation in the atmosphere has been studied. Although sodium is depleted in $~$ 80% of the Geminids, statistically significant variations of sodium in the Geminid meteors were found. It should be noted that Na depletion in the Geminid meteors increased with decreasing meteoroid size. A yearly variation of Na in the Geminid meteor streams was also found. Solar-heating age across the different parts of the meteoroids stream ejected from a parent active asteroid (3200) Phaethon having 0.14 AU small perihelion distance seems to the most likely explanation for the sodium variation and depletion. Surprisingly, three iron Geminid meteors were detected across the maximum of 2018 Geminids.
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Over the past decade there has been a large increase in the number of automated camera networks that monitor the sky for fireballs. One of the goals of these networks is to provide the necessary information for linking meteorites to their pre-impact, heliocentric orbits and ultimately to their source regions in the solar system. We re-compute heliocentric orbits for the 25 meteorite falls published to date from original data sources. Using these orbits, we constrain their most likely escape routes from the main asteroid belt and the cometary region by utilizing a state-of-the-art orbit model of the near-Earth-object population, which includes a size-dependence in delivery efficiency. While we find that our general results for escape routes are comparable to previous work, the role of trajectory measurement uncertainty in escape-route identification is explored for the first time. Moreover, our improved size-dependent delivery model substantially changes likely escape routes for several meteorite falls, most notably Tagish Lake which seems unlikely to have originated in the outer main belt as previously suggested. We find that reducing the uncertainty of fireball velocity measurements below  ∼ 0.1 km/s does not lead to reduced uncertainties in the identification of their escape routes from the asteroid belt and, further, their ultimate source regions. This analysis suggests that camera networks should be optimized for the largest possible number of meteorite recoveries with measured speed precisions of order 0.1 km/s.
Physical properties of the stone meteorites: Implications for the properties of their parent bodies
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The physical properties of the stone meteorites provide important clues to understanding the formation and physical evolution of material in the Solar protoplanetary disk as well providing indications of the properties of their asteroidal parent bodies. Knowledge of these properties is essential for modeling a number of Solar System processes, such as bolides in planetary atmospheres, the thermal inertia of atmosphereless solid body surfaces, and the internal physical and thermal evolution of asteroids and rock-rich icy bodies. In addition, insight into the physical properties of the asteroids is important for the design of robotic and crewed reconnaissance, lander, and sample return spacecraft missions to the asteroids. One key property is meteorite porosity, which ranges from 0% to more than 40%, similar to the range of porosities seen in asteroids. Porosity affects many of the other physical properties including thermal conductivity, speed of sound, deformation under stress, strength, and response to impact. As a result of the porosity, the properties of most stone meteorites differ significantly from those of compact terrestrial rocks, whose physical properties have been used in many models of asteroid behavior. A few physical properties, such as grain density, magnetic susceptibility, and heat capacity are not functions of porosity. Taken together, the grain density and the magnetic susceptibility can be used to classify unweathered or minimally weathered ordinary chondrites. This provides a rapid screening technique to identify heterogeneous samples, classify new samples, and identify misclassified meteorites or interlopers in strewn fields.
On the age and formation mechanism of the core of the Quadrantid meteoroid stream
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Citation Excerpt :
This method, however, is worth for future investigation. In our study, we use the orbital data of eight high-precision Quadrantids, photographed from multiple stations by the Czech part of the European Fireball Network (“EN”), (Spurný, 1994; Spurný et al., 2007). In addition to these bright photographic Quadrantids, we also use five core radar Quadrantids observed by the Canadian Meteor Orbit Radar (CMOR) (Jones et al., 2005), which sample the smaller members of the stream (milligram size).
The Quadrantid meteor shower is among the strongest annual meteor showers, and has drawn the attention of scientists for several decades. The stream is unusual, among others, for several reasons: its very short duration around maximum activity (≈12–14 h) as detected by visual, photographic and radar observations, its recent onset (around 1835 AD Quetelet, L.A.J. [1839]. Catalogue des principles apparitions d’etoiles filantes) and because it had been the only major stream without an obvious parent body until 2003. Ever since, there have been debates as to the age of the stream and the nature of its proposed parent body, asteroid 2003 EH₁.
In this work, we present results on the most probable age and formation mechanism of the narrow portion of the Quadrantid meteoroid stream. For the first time we use data on eight high precision photographic Quadrantids, equivalent to gram–kilogram size, to constrain the most likely age of the core of the stream. Out of eight high-precision photographic Quadrantids, five pertain directly to the narrow portion of the stream. In addition, we also use data on five high-precision radar Quadrantids, observed within the peak of the shower.
We performed backwards numerical integrations of the equations of motion of a large number of ‘clones’ of both, the eight high-precision photographic and five radar Quadrantid meteors, along with the proposed parent body, 2003 EH₁. According to our results, from the backward integrations, the most likely age of the narrow structure of the Quadrantids is between 200 and 300 years. These presumed ejection epochs, corresponding to 1700–1800 AD, are then used for forward integrations of large numbers of hypothetical meteoroids, ejected from the parent 2003 EH₁, until the present epoch. The aim is to constrain whether the core of the Quadrantid meteoroid stream is consistent with a previously proposed relatively young age (≈200 years).
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Recent fireballs photographed in central Europe

Abstract

Earth-grazing fireball of October 13, 1990

Astron. Astrophys.

Earth-grazing fireballs

Bull. astron. Inst. Czech.

New aspects in classification of meteoroids

Geometric, dynamic, orbital and photometric data on meteoroids from photographic fireball networks

Bull. astron. Inst. Czech.