(meteorobs) Martian Meteor Shower

[Geert Barentsen]

Hi Roberto,

I guess the news is not the prediction, but the actual detection of
meteor activity with a spacecraft (radio science) experiment. If such
techniques are proven to work, you could start dreaming of dedicated
instruments on future spacecrafts to measure the meteor flux on other
planets (wishful thinking...)

So far I am only aware of the detection of a meteor by the Spirit Mars
Rover (http://www.space.com/scienceastronomy/050601_mars_meteor.html)
-- but the light curve is funny and some people claim it may have been
a cosmic ray.

I know some people have been looking into spectrometer data from the
Mars Express and Venus Express missions, to look for signs of elements
like Si/Mg/Fe near predicted showers, but as far as I know without
success...

Best greetings,
Geert



On 02/04/2008, Roberto G. <md6648 at mclink.it> wrote:
> 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
>
>
>
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