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NASA NTRS1987

Some models of the Geminids meteor stream formation

Further development of methods of investigations of meteor shower structure and a great deal of observational data have made it possible to obtain a precise flux density profile along the Earth's orbit for the Geminids meteor shower. This curve proved to be adequately described by a exponential law. Examined are: (1) which ejection model will fit the observed shower structure; and (2) to what extent the subsequent process of evolution modifies the formed structure. The following conclusions are drawn: (1) When studying the mechanism of formation of meteor streams, it is necessary to take into consideration the velocity distribution of particles that have been ejected from the parent body; (2) On the basis of the observed density variations, it is possible to determine what kind of ejection takes place (a single ejection or that around an orbital arch); and (3) The original structure of the Geminids cross section persists for no more than 1,500 to 2,000 years.

Belkovich, O. I.↗

NASA NTRS1987

New approaches to some methodological problems of meteor science

Several low cost approaches to continuous radioscatter monitoring of the incoming meteor flux are described. Preliminary experiments were attempted using standard time frequency stations WWVH and CHU (on frequencies near 15 MHz) during nighttime hours. Around-the-clock monitoring using the international standard aeronautical beacon frequency of 75 MHz was also attempted. The techniques are simple and can be managed routinely by amateur astronomers with relatively little technical expertise. Time series analysis can now be performed using relatively inexpensive microcomputers. Several algorithmic approaches to the analysis of meteor rates are discussed. Methods of obtaining optimal filter predictions of future meteor flux are also discussed.

Meisel, David D.↗

NASA NTRS1987

Hard- and software problems of spaced meteor observations by optical electronics

An optical electronic facility is being used for meteor observations along with meteor radars and astronomical TV. The main parts of the facility are cameras using UM-92 optical electronic image tubes. The three cascade optical electronic image tube with magnetic focusing has a 40 mm cathode and resolution in the center of up to 30 pairs of lines/mm. The photocathode is of a multislit S-20 type. For meteor spectra observations, replica gratings of 200 and 300 lines/mm are used as the dispersive element.

Shafiev, R. I.↗

NASA NTRS1989

Dust of Orionid meteor shower in the Earth atmosphere before and after Halley's Comet

Among the interesting questions concerning meteor streams associated with Comet Halley is the question of whether or not the activity of a meteor stream was connected with the approach of the comet to the terrestrial orbit in 1985 to 1986. Meteoric aerosols getting to the upper atmosphere can be detected by twilight sounding, as has been done previously. It turns out that not only parameters describing some properties of aerosol can be obtained by twilight sounding, but also characteristics concerning the structure of the stream can be derived. Among the yearly active streams, the Orionides have always attracted the attention of scientists. The period of activity of the Orionides is October 18 to 26, and the maximum stream activity is October 21. In detecting aerosol layers in the terrestrial atmosphere, a notion of the logarithmic intensity gradient of scattered twilight light is used, d log I/dH, where I is intensity and H is the real twilight beam height, which is a function of the wavelength observed. A photoelectric photometer with an interference filter at the wavelength of 610 nm is used. The observation were carried out in two points of the solar vertical; the zenith angle of the observation points was + or - 60 degrees. The recording was carried on continuously in each direction during a minute, then the system was switched to the other direction. A calibration standard was recorded before each observation. The observation dates in the Orionid periods of 1984, 1986, and 1987 are given.

Mateshvili, G.↗

NASA NTRS1991

Characteristics of ejecta and alluvial deposits at Meteor Crater, Arizona and Odessa Craters, Texas: Results from ground penetrating radar

Previous ground penetrating radar (GRP) studies around 50,000 year old Meteor Crater revealed the potential for rapid, inexpensive, and non-destructive sub-surface investigations for deep reflectors (generally greater than 10 m). New GRP results are summarized focusing the shallow sub-surfaces (1-2 m) around Meteor Crater and the main crater at Odessa. The following subject areas are covered: (1) the thickness, distribution, and nature of the contact between surrounding alluvial deposits and distal ejecta; and (2) stratigraphic relationships between both the ejecta and alluvium derived from both pre and post crater drainages. These results support previous conclusions indicating limited vertical lowering (less than 1 m) of the distal ejecta at Meteor Crater and allow initial assessment of the gradational state if the Odessa craters.

Grant, J. A.↗

NASA NTRS1992

Determination of meteor flux distribution over the celestial sphere

A new method of determination of meteor flux density distribution over the celestial sphere is discussed. The flux density was derived from observations by radar together with measurements of angles of arrival of radio waves reflected from meteor trails. The role of small meteor showers over the sporadic background is shown.

Andreev, V. V.↗

NASA NTRS1992

Observation of meteors by MST radar

The observation of meteor trails by a vertical mesosphere - stratosphere - troposphere (MST) radar beam has the advantage of good height resolution and an approximate knowledge of the zenith angle since the trails are horizontal or near-horizontal. An extension of the ablation theory of meteors was developed for near horizontal trails which takes into account the curvature of the earth. Observations of the Geminid meteor shower by MST radar reveal the 'diffusion heights' to be in fair agreement with the true height, but with some discrepancies that can amount to 4 km. The true heights are almost entirely confined to the range 87-91 km, although the upper limit is attributed to the coherent integration time of the existing MST radar processing.

Jones, William↗

NASA NTRS1992

Meteor radiant mapping with MU radar

The radiant point mapping of meteor showers with the MU radar by using a modified mapping method originally proposed by Morton and Jones (1982) was carried out. The modification is that each meteor echo was weighted by using the beam pattern of the radar system. A preliminary result of the radiant point mapping of the Geminids meteor shower in 1989 is presented.

Watanabe, Jun-Ichi↗

NASA NTRS1993

Results from the US/Russian Meteor-3/Total Ozone Mapping Spectrometer

The development of Meteor-3/TOMS (Total Ozone Mapping Spectrometer) was a joint project of the United States and Russia to fly a U.S. ozone measuring instrument (TOMS) onboard a Russian spacecraft (Meteor-3) and rocket (Cyclone), launched from Plesetsk, Russia. The Meteor-3/TOMS (M3TOMS) was launched into a 1202-km-high, near-polar orbit on 15 Aug. 1991, where it can obtain complete global coverage for most of each year. Both the U.S. and Russian sides have successfully received and processed data into ozone amounts from 25 Aug. 1991 to 1 Jun. 1992, and expect to continue for the life of the instrument and spacecraft. The successful development of the instrument hardware, spacecraft interface, data memory, telemetry systems, and software are described. Descriptions are given of the U.S. and Russian ground stations for receiving M3TOMS data. In addition, the data reduction software was independently developed by the U.S. and by the Russians, and is shown to agree to better than the precision of the measurements.

Herman, Jay R.↗

NASA NTRS1995

Meteor 3/total ozone mapping spectrometer observations of the 1993 ozone hole

The development of the springtime (September-November) Antarctic ozone hole was observed by the Meteor 3/total ozone mapping spectromter (TOMS) to result in the lowest ozone value, 85 DU (Dobson units) on October 8, 1993, ever measured by TOMS. During late September and early October the region of extremely low ozone values was centered on the geographical pole between 85 deg S and 90 deg S. The geographical extent of the ozone hole region, the area within the 220-DU contour, reached a maximum during the first week in October at a near-circular area covering 24 x 10(exp 6) sq km reaching to the southern tip of South America. This approximately matched the 1992 area record. After the maximum area was reached in early October, the 1993 ozone hole region was significantly larger than during 1992 throughout the remainder of the month of October. The very low ozone values over the Antarctic continent have been confirmed by independent ground-based data. Unlike 1992, the formation of the 1993 Antarctic ozone hole does not coincide with unusually low ozone values observed over most of the globe for the past 2 years. The most recent ozone data from Meteor 3/TOMS show that there has been a recovery at all latitudes from the extraordinarily low values observed during 1992 and part of 1993 after the June 1991 eruption of Mount Pinatubo. Meteor 3/TOMS is described and compared with Nimbus 7/TOMS during the 1991 to May 1993 overlap period. Observations of the 1992 ozone hole are presented from both instruments and are shown to agree within 5 DU.

Herman, J. R.↗

NASA NTRS1995

Data processing of solar EUV instruments on the METEOR satellite

The Multiple Experiment Transporter into Earth Orbit and Return-Solar EUV Experiment (METEOR-SEE) project will take daily extreme ultraviolet (EUV) irradiance spectra starting in the summer of 1995. The METEOR-SEE package consists of an EUV grating spectrograph (EGS) and a cluster of 5 soft x-ray photometers (XP's). Both these instruments have flown previously on NASA sounding rockets. Because of the scope of the project, new data processing algorithms had to be developed for the SEE instruments onboard the METEOR satellite. An overview of the data flow describes how satellite data are collected and processed. Detailed descriptions of specific routines will show what data processing entails.

Brown, Hipook↗

NASA NTRS2000

The Leonid Meteors and Space Shuttle Risk Assessment

The November 1999 Leonid meteor shower was videotaped on the grounds of the NASA Johnson Space Center (JSC) and at the JSC Observatory in Cloudcroft, New Mexico. The videotapes were analyzed using a meteor analysis system developed at JSC. The results of the analysis were compared to the Leonid Meteors Mass Distribution Model derived at JSC and used for micrometeoroid and orbital debris risk assessment performed before each Space Shuttle mission. The observed data compared favorably to the model in the .001 to 0.2 gram range but diverged from the model for the smaller masses. We attribute the divergence to optical equipment limitations. These 1999 results will be compared with the 1998 results which were presented at the April 1999 Leonid Multi-Instrument Aircraft Campaign (MAC) Workshop.

Pawlowski, James F.↗

NASA NTRS2001

In Situ Measurements of Meteoric Ions

Metal ions found in the atmosphere above 60 km are the result of incoming meteoroid atmospheric ablation. Layers of metal ions are detected by sounding rocket in situ mass spectrometric sampling in the 80 to 130 km region, which coincides with the altitude region where meteors are observed. Enhancements of metal ion concentrations occur during meteor showers. Even outside of shower periods, the metal ion altitude profiles vary from measurement to measurement. Double layers are frequent at middle latitudes. More than 40 different meteoric atomic and molecular ions, including isotopes, have been detected. Atmospheric metal ions on average have an abundance that matches chrondritic material, the same composition as the early solar system. However there are frequently local departures from this composition due to differential ablation, species dependent chemistry and mass dependent ion transport. Metal ions react with atmospheric O2, O, O3, H2O and H2O2 to form oxygenated and hydrogenated ionic compounds. Metal atomic ions at high altitudes have long lifetimes. As a result, these ions, in the presence of Earth's magnetic field, are transported over long distances by upper atmospheric winds and ionospheric electric fields. Satellite measurements have detected metal ions as high as, approximately 1000 km and have revealed circulation of the ions on a global scale.

Grebowsky, Joseph M.↗

NASA NTRS2002

Video Observations Encompassing the 2002 Leonid Storm: First Results and a Revised Photometric Procedure for Video Meteor Analysis

During the 2001 Leonid storm, Marshall Space Flight Center, with the cooperation of the University of Western Ontario and the United States Air Force, deployed 6 teams of observers equipped with intensified video systems to sites located in North America, the Pacific, and Mongolia. The campaign was extremely successful, with the entire period of enhanced Leonid activity (over 16 hours) captured on video tape in a consistent manner. We present the first results from the analysis of this unique, 2 terabyte data set and discuss the problems involved in reducing large amounts of video meteor data. In particular, the question of how to determine meteor masses though photometric analysis will be re-examined, and new techniques will be proposed that eliminate some of the deficiencies suffered by the techniques currently employed in video meteor analysis.

Cooke, William J.↗

NASA NTRS2002

Video Observations Encompassing the 2002 Leonid Storm: First Results and a Revised Photometric Procedure for Video Meteor Analysis

Cooke, William J.↗

NASA NTRS2002

Initial Operation and Checkout of Stratospheric Aerosol Gas Experiment and Meteor-3M Satellite

Under a joint agreement between the National Aeronautics and Space Agency (NASA) and the Russian Aviation and Space Agency (RASA), the Stratospheric Aerosol Gas Experiment III (SAGE III) instrument was launched in low earth orbit on December 10,2001 aboard the Russian Meteor-3M satellite from the Baikonur Cosmodrome. SAGE III is a spectrometer that measures attenuated radiation in the 282 nm to 1550 nm wavelength range to obtain the vertical profiles of ozone, aerosols, and other chemical species that are critical in studying the trends for the global climate change phenomena. This instrument version is more advanced than any of the previous versions and has more spectral bands, elaborate data gathering and storage, and intelligent terrestrial software. There are a number of Russian scientific instruments aboard the Meteor satellite in addition to the SAGE III instrument. These instruments deal with land imaging and biomass changes, hydro-meteorological monitoring, and helio-geophysical research. This mission was under development for over a period of six years and offered a number of unique technical and program management challenges for both Agencies. SAGE III has a long space heritage, and four earlier versions of this instrument have flown in space for nearly two decades now. In fact, SAGE II, the fourth instrument, is still flying in space on NASA s Earth Radiation Budget Satellite (ERBS), and has been providing important atmospheric data over the last 18 years. It has provided vital ozone and aerosol data in the mid latitudes and has contributed vastly in ozone depletion research. Ball Aerospace built the instrument under Langley Research Center s (LaRC) management. This paper presents innovative approaches deployed by the SAGE III and the Meteor teams in performing the initial on-orbit checkout. It further documents a number of early science results obtained by deploying low risk, carefully coordinated procedures in resolving the serious operational issues of this satellite.

Habib, Shahid↗

NASA NTRS2004

Meteor wake in high frame-rate images--implications for the chemistry of ablated organic compounds

Extraterrestrial organic matter may have been chemically altered into forms more ameanable for prebiotic chemistry in the wake of a meteor after ablation. We measured the rate of cooling of the plasma in the meteor wake from the intensity decay just behind a meteoroid by freezing its motion in high frame-rate 1000 frames/s video images, with an intensified camera that has a short phosphor decay time. Though the resulting cooling rate was found to be lower than theoretically predicted, our calculations indicated that there would have been insufficient collisions to break apart large organic compounds before most reactive radicals and electrons were lost from the air plasma. Organic molecules delivered from space to the early Earth via meteors might therefore have survived in a chemically altered form. In addition, we discovered that relatively small meteoroids generated far-ultraviolet emission that is absorbed in the immediate environment of the meteoroid, which may chemically alter the atmosphere over a much larger region than previously recognized.

Meteoroids↗

NASA NTRS2010

Creation of High Resolution Terrain Models of Barringer Meteorite Crater (Meteor Crater) Using Photogrammetry and Terrestrial Laser Scanning Methods

Barringer Meteorite Crater or Meteor Crater, AZ, has been a site of high interest for lunar and Mars analog crater and terrain studies since the early days of the Apollo-Saturn program. It continues to be a site of exceptional interest to lunar, Mars, and other planetary crater and impact analog studies because of its relatively young age (est. 50 thousand years) and well-preserved structure. High resolution (2 meter to 1 decimeter) digital terrain models of Meteor Crater in whole or in part were created at NASA Stennis Space Center to support several lunar surface analog modeling activities using photogrammetric and ground based laser scanning techniques. The dataset created by this activity provides new and highly accurate 3D models of the inside slope of the crater as well as the downslope rock distribution of the western ejecta field. The data are presented to the science community for possible use in furthering studies of Meteor Crater and impact craters in general as well as its current near term lunar exploration use in providing a beneficial test model for lunar surface analog modeling and surface operation studies.

Brown, Richard B.↗