(meteorobs) Martian Meteor Shower

[Roberto G.]

From: <meteoreye at comcast.net>

> Shooting Star Shower Spotted on Mars
> By Dave Mosher
> Staff Writer
> posted: 1 April 2008
> 7:01 p.m. ET
>
>
> A shower of shooting stars has been recorded by instruments on Mars for 
> the first time, astronomers say.
> Meteors have been spotted before by the Mars rovers, but no device has 
> ever detected a full shower until now.
> United Kingdom astronomers predicted the event by tracking a comet's path 
> near Mars, then comparing their forecast with Mars Global Surveyor (MGS) 
> satellite data of the red planet's ionosphere - the upper reaches of 
> atmosphere teeming with charged particles.
> "Just as we can predict meteor outbursts at Earth, such as the Leonids 
> [shower that occurs every November], we can also predict when meteor 
> showers are going to occur at Mars and Venus," said Apostolos Christou, an 
> astronomer at the U.K.'s Armagh Observatory who helped predict the martian 
> meteoric event.
> Christou is set to present findings about the meteor-showering pass of 
> comet 79P/du Toit-Hartley at the Royal Astronomical Society's National 
> Astronomy Meeting in Belfast on April 2.
>
> Full Story:
> http://www.space.com/scienceastronomy/080401-mars-shooting-stars.html

New or old news?
During the IMC of  23-26 September 1993 (Puimichel, France), yes, 1993, the 
same
IMC where Asher was showing its previsions of  Taurids, Alexandra Terentjeva 
was
showing  the Martian meteor showers, 58 martian meteor showers, then the 
topic
it's old! And I think that it wasn't the first time that somebody was 
calculating meteor
showers of Mars.
Some day ago I noted that a new discovered asteroid should near sure a 
parent body
of a martian meteor shower, the asteroid it's 2008 FF5 (MPEC circular MPEC 
2008-F50)
http://cfa-www.harvard.edu/mpec/K08/K08F50.html
this body it's a body that near miss the orbits of Mercury, Venus, Earth and 
Mars
and for Mars it's very probably that do a meteor shower, see at

http://ssd.jpl.nasa.gov/sbdb.cgi?sstr=2008+FF5+&orb=1

the problem it's that we have only a very little arc of orbit, this orbit 
changed
of period from the first ci8rcular from 5,8 yeara to 3,33 years at the today 
3,41 years,
but all time it's near Mars orbit. Perharps 2008 FF5 not do a meteor martian 
shower
but certainly its inclination, little more of 2.5° show that must receive a 
big
attention from professional astronomers, too for its very little MOID with 
the
4 planets.
Best greetings.
Roberto Gorelli