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(meteorobs) Re: Sunspot vs Meteor Activity
I may be naive here, but I've always understood that the main
interaction between solar activity and meteor activity was that the
enhanced UV/X-ray emission from solar active regions at maximum
resulted in heating/expansion of the upper atmosphere, pushing the
meteor layer higher - ie, greater density at higher altitudes. So,
for example, if one were to take a mean of meteor heights from a
given shower (for consistency of other factors), the finding should
be that meteors triangulated at maximum occu4rred at greater altitude
than those at minimum. The atmosphere simply becomes sufficiently
dense to cause ablation higher up; rates remain unaffected...
Neil Bone
Director, BAA Meteor Section
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