[Prev][Next][Index][Thread]

Re: (meteorobs) Diffuse glow...

I remembered this one too, since it popped up just last week at the
conference "Meteoroids 98" and the "International Meteor Conference 98" in
Slovakia. The idea is that possibly the "glow" can be seen for the Leonids.
It was mentioned in the article by Joe Rao "Perseids 1993: The big one?",
WGN 21:3 (1993), pp. 110-119.

In the abstract it says: "Finally, a very rare phenomenon is briefly
discussed: the prospect of actually detecting the particles producing the
Perseid stream in interplanetary space just prior to or just after
encountering the Earth". Later in the article he writes "My calculations
indicate that just prior to when the Earth passes through the plane of the
comets orbit, the stream of approaching meteoroids may show up as a glow
roughly 10 deg to the south of Algol. The receding meteor stream would be a
similar glow in the southern constellation of Triangulum Australe...". 

I did not find any mentioning of the size of the glow or whether it would
be better visible before or after the maximum.

My interpretation is that he only calculated in which direction the stream
is. I am not aware of any real scientific study of this effect, i.e. to use
the scattering properties of such particles (which is in itself a matter of
debate) and integrate over the line-of-sight. This surely would be an
interesting study for several streams. Anybody out there wants to make a
thesis out of that? Let me know!

At last week's conferences, this glow was mentioned as one of the many
interesting things to watch out for at the Leonid storm. Another
interesting one is to look at the dark side of the Moon and try to detect
impact flashes, which might be as bright as 6 mag...

Clear skies, Detlef.



At 01:45 PM 8/14/98 -0400, you wrote:
>
>> Lew... my tired brain is failing me at the moment... but I think it was in
>> one of the WGN's I was reading down at Green Bank... ??  
>> I seem to recall that the glow was seen <before> an outburst, not after,
ie.
>> that it was a clue that something was coming!  The article gave an
>> approximate size of the apparent cloud too, I thought...
>> - Cathy
>
>Curioser and curioser, Cathy! :)
>
>Can one of our resident Human WGN Indexes confirm which issue this was in?
>
>Lew
>
>
>
>
----------------------------------------------------------------
Detlef Koschny                      email: dkoschny@estec.esadot nl
European Space Agency
ESTEC Sci/SO
Keplerlaan 1                              phone: +31-71-565-4828
NL-2201 AZ Noordwijk ZH                     fax: +31-71-565-4697
----------------------------------------------------------------
Follow-Ups: References: