Open AccessDetermining the initial radius of meteor trains: fragmentation
Author(s) -
CampbellBrown M.,
Jones J.
Publication year - 2003
Publication title -
monthly notices of the royal astronomical society
Language(s) - English
Resource type - Journals
SCImago Journal Rank - 2.058
H-Index - 383
eISSN - 1365-2966
pISSN - 0035-8711
DOI - 10.1046/j.1365-8711.2003.06713.x
Subject(s) - physics , meteor (satellite) , radius , meteoroid , attenuation , ionization , effective radius , astrophysics , computational physics , flux (metallurgy) , astronomy , optics , ion , computer security , computer science , materials science , quantum mechanics , galaxy , metallurgy
The initial radius of meteor ionization has significant effects on measured height distributions, velocity distributions and flux measurements of underdense echoes determined from meteor radar observations. Multifrequency radar observations are used to examine the effects of initial train radius. A model has been constructed to explain the observed distribution, and has been tested on the 2001 Geminids. It is shown that fragmentation accounts for the most significant part of the attenuation due to finite train size.