News from the meteor library: gravitational focusing of meteoroid streams

Roberto Gorelli points our attention at a recently published meteor related paper.

Realistic gravitational focusing of meteoroid streams

This paper has been submitted for publication to Monthly Notices of the Royal Astronomical Society by Althea V. Moorhead, Tiffany D. Clements, and Denis Vida.

Abstract: The number density and flux of a meteoroid stream is enhanced near a massive body due to the phenomenon known as gravitational focusing. The greatest enhancement occurs directly opposite the massive body from the stream radiant: as an observer approaches this location, the degree of focusing is unbound for a perfectly collimated stream. However, real meteoroid streams exhibit some dispersion in radiant and speed that will act to eliminate this singularity. In this paper, we derive an analytic approximation for this smoothing that can be used in meteoroid environment models and is based on real measurements of meteor shower radiant dispersion.

You can download this paper for free:  https://arxiv.org/pdf/2003.05458.pdf (14 pages).

Older meteor library news:

2020

• On the delivery of DART-ejected material from asteroid (65803) Didymos to Earth, by Paul Wiegert (5 March 2020).
• Physically based alternative to the PE criterion for meteoroids, by Manuel Moreno-Ibáñez, Maria Gritsevich, Josep M. Trigo-Rodríguez, Elizabeth A. Silber. (3 March 2020).
• Hemolithin: a Meteoritic Protein containing Iron and Lithium, by Malcolm. W. McGeoch, Sergei Dikler and Julie E. M. McGeoch (28 February 2020).
• Orbital dynamics of highly probable but rare Orionid outbursts possibly observed by the ancient Maya, by J. H. Kinsman and D. J. Asher (22 February 2020).
• A new method for measuring the meteor mass index: application to the 2018 Draconid meteor shower outburst, by D. Vida, M. Campbell-Brown, P. G. Brown, A. Egal, and M. J. Mazur (11 February 2020).
• A Two Year Survey for VLF Emission from Fireballs, by C. Y. Sung, P. Brown and R. Marshall (11 February 2020).
• Observational Signatures of Sub-Relativistic Meteors, by Amir Siraj and Abraham Loeb (6 February 2020).
• Supercatastrophic disruption of asteroids in the context of SOHO comet, fireball and meteor observations, by Paul Wiegert, Peter Brown, Petr Pokorny, Quanzhi Ye, Cole Gregg, Karina Lenartowicz, Zbigniew Krzeminski and David Clark. (28 January 2020).
• Physical properties of Taurid meteoroids of various sizes, by Jiří Borovička and Pavel Spurný. (27 January 2020).
• The orbital clusters among the near Earth asteroids, by Tadeusz J. Jopek. (27 January 2020).

2019

• Parker Solar Probe Observations of a Dust Trail in the Orbit of (3200) Phaethon, by Karl Battams, Matthew M. Knight, Michael S.P. Kelley, Brendan M. Gallagher, Russell A. Howard, and Guillermo Stenborg. (22 December 2019).
• Meteoroid Stream Formation Due to the Extraction of Space Resources from Asteroids, by Logan Fladeland, Aaron C. Boley, and Michael Byers. (2 December 2019).
• Estimating trajectories of meteors: an observational Monte Carlo approach – II. Results, by Denis Vida, Peter G. Brown, Margaret Campbell-Brown, Paul Wiegert and Peter S. Gural. (27 November 2019).
• Estimating trajectories of meteors: an observational Monte Carlo approach – I. Theory, by Denis Vida, Peter S. Gural, Peter G. Brown, Margaret Campbell-Brown and Paul Wiegert. (11 November 2019).
• Meteor shower activity profiles and the use of orbital dissimilarity (D) criteria, by Althea V. Moorhead. (25 October 2019).
• A fireball and potentially hazardous binary near-Earth asteroid (164121) 2003 YT1, by Toshihiro Kasuga, Mikiya Sato, Masayoshi Ueda, Yasunori Fujiwara, Chie Tsuchiya, and Jun-ichi Watanabe. (18 October 2019).
• Spectral and orbital survey of medium-sized meteoroids, by Pavol Matlovic, Juraj Tóth, Regina Rudawska, Leonard Kornoš and Adriana Pisarcíková. (7 August 2019).
• Rising from Ashes or Dying Flash? Mega Outburst of Small Comet 289P/Blanpain in 2013, by Quanzhi Ye (叶泉志) and David L. Clark. (19 June 2019).
• Discovery of a Meteor of Interstellar Origin, by Amir Siraj and Abraham Loeb. (10 June 2019).
• A Mathematical Model for Simulating Meteor Showers, by M. Cardinot and A. Namen. (4 June 2019).
• The 2019 Taurid resonant swarm: prospects for ground detection of small NEOs, by David Clark, Paul Wiegert and Peter G. Brown. (28 May 2019).
• Analysis of the June 2, 2016 bolide event over Arizona, by Csaba Palotai, Ramanakumar Sankar, Dwayne L. Free, J. Andreas Howell, Elena Botella and Daniel Batcheldor. (25 May 2019).
• Identifying Interstellar Objects Trapped in the Solar System through Their Orbital Parameters, by Amir Siraj and Abraham Loeb. (5 May 2019).
• Meteor Shower Modeling: Past and Future Draconid Outbursts, by A. Egal, P. Wiegert, P. G. Brown, D. E. Moser, M. Campbell-Brown, A. Moorhead, S. Ehlert and N. Moticska. (1 May 2019).
• Meteoroid structure and fragmentation, by M. D. Campbell-Brown. (24 March 2019).
• Solar cycle variation in radar meteor rates, by M. D. Campbell-Brown. (26 February 2019).
• A New Meteoroid Model, by Valeri V. Dikarev, Eberhard Grün, William J. Baggaley, David P. Galligan, Markus Landgraf, Rüdiger Jehn. (12 February 2019).
• Lunar impacts, by Costantino Sigismondi. (12 February 2019).
• Lunar impact flashes, by C. Avdellidou and J. Vaubaillon. (10 February 2019).
• The Geminid parent body: (3200) Phaethon, by Patrick A. Taylor, Edgard G. Rivera-Valentín, Lance A.M. Benner, Sean E. Marshall, Anne K. Virkki, Flaviane C.F. Venditti, Luisa F. Zambrano-Marin, Sriram S. Bhiravarasu, Betzaida Aponte-Hernandez, Carolina Rodriguez Sanchez-Vahamonde and Jon D. Giorgini. (10 February 2019).
• Sun approaching asteroids and meteor streams, by Quanzhi Ye and Mikael Granvik. (10 February 2019).

2018

• Waiting to make an impact: A probable excess of near-Earth asteroids in 2018 LA-like orbits, by C. de la Fuente Marcos and R. de la Fuente Marcos. (18 December 2018).
• What mechanisms dominate the activity of Geminid Parent (3200) Phaethon?, by LiangLiang Yu, Wing-Huen Ip and Tilman Spohn. (6 November 2018).
• The Draconid meteoroid stream 2018: prospects for satellite impact detection, by Auriane Egal, Paul Wiegert, Peter G. Brown, Danielle E. Moser, Althea V. Moorhead and William J. Cooke (21 September 2018).
• Modeling the measurement accuracy of pre-atmosphere velocities of meteoroids, by Denis Vida, Peter G. Brown and Margaret Campbell-Brown (15 July 2018).

2017

• The Mayas and Eta Aquariids in AD 250-909, by J.H. Kinsman and D.J. Asher (31 July 2017).