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

Re: (meteorobs) Leonid MAC: December 08, 2003 [QUA Parent Comet Identified!]

   This was quite interesting,  the Quadrantids have always seemed to be in
a class by themselves, with their short-duration, high ZHR peak and the
mystery surrounding their parent, which now appears to be solved.

Another thing I find interesting (as a relatively uninformed observer) is
the uniformity in the stream as regards it's complete circuit -- if only 500
years old it certainly has created a stream which seems to have no major
year-to-year variation, while the Leonids really only entertain us during a
small but bust section of its stream.

Looking forward to hearing more on the Quads, especially now that they may
shed light on the relationships between dead comets and asteroids.

Kim Y.
----- Original Message ----- 
From: "Peter Jenniskens (via Lew Gramer)" <peter@max.arc.nasadot gov>
To: <meteorobs@meteorobs.org>
Sent: Wednesday, December 10, 2003 10:44 AM
Subject: (meteorobs) Leonid MAC: December 08, 2003 [QUA Parent Comet
Identified!]


>
>
> [Forwarded without explicit permission of the author. -L Gramer]
>
>
> LEONID MULTI-INSTRUMENT AIRCRAFT CAMPAIGN
>
> Status of project as of December 08, 2003
> =========================================
>
> 1. QUADRANTID PARENT COMET IDENTIFIED
>
> IAU Circular No. 8252 (December 08) announced the discovery
> of the Quadrantid parent comet. I suspected it to be still
> present among the Quadrantid meteoroid stream after precise
> orbit measurements by my collaborators of the Dutch Meteor
> Society in 1995 showed that the stream was very young,
> about 500 years old. Back on March 6, the Lowell Observatory
> Near-Earth Object Survey first spotted this asteroid and the
> orbit was refined significantly by other observers in the next
> 48 days. Now, in searching the asteroid orbit database, I found
> the orbit of minor planet 2003 EH1 to be very close to that expected
> for the Quadrantid parent. The identification of a dust trail in
> the orbit of 2003 EH1 (the Quadrantids) identifies this object
> as a (now likely extinct) comet nucleus that appears to be the
> remnant of a larger object that broke up about 500 years ago.
>
> A paper (submitted to Astron. J.) about this has been posted at:
> http://aio.arc.nasadot gov/~leonid/EH1.pdf
>
> 2. LEONIDS 2003 SPOILED BY CLOUDS
>
> The 2003 Leonid campaign was a low-key effort, despite expectations
> of elevated rates, including two encounters with identified
> dust trails. Unfortunately, clouds hampered observations at most
> observing sites, including our key sites in Alaska (Peter Jenniskens
> and Hans Nielsen) and Virginia (Peter Gural and George Varros).
> Fortunately, observations from the broader Filament component (not the
> dust trails) were possible from California (Mike Koop and
> David Holman) and in the night before from Virginia, providing
> multi-station video orbits of the Filament meteoroids. Moreover,
> a new instrument for rapidly pointing at meteors was tested at the
> Poker Flats facility of the Geophysical Institute of the University
> of Alaska (host Hans Nielsen) by Jenniskens and Gural and found
> to perform as expected. The instrument, using software developed by
> Peter Gural, increased the field of view of Nielsen's high frame-rate
> imager by a factor of about 40, resulting in 12 detections in two
> off-peak nights, as opposed to 60 detections in the 2002 Leonid storm
> campaign. The instrument was developed with support of NASA's Astro-
> biology Instrument and Development (ASTID) program.
>
> 3. AGU METEORS MEETING
>
> The Fall AGU meeting features both a morning and afternoon session
> on meteor research, as well as a poster session. The meeting is
> organized by Diego Janches and Jonathan Friedman of NAIC/Arecibo
> Observatory. The meteor session will be on Thursday Dec 11.
>
> 4. CALL FOR PAPERS COSPAR
>
> The next COSPAR meeting will be held in Paris, July 18 - 25 2004
> (http://www.copernicus.org/COSPAR/COSPAR.html).
> At this meeting will be a special session devoted to meteor
> spectroscopy and related studies of cometary dust. Early birds
> may be able to benefit from travel grants. COSPAR just announced
> that the website is up.
>
>
> - Peter Jenniskens
>
>
> ..........................................................................
>
>  Peter Jenniskens
>
>    The SETI Institute                    e-mail:
>    pjenniskens@mail.arc.nasadot gov
>    2035 Landings Drive                      tel: (650) 966-8117 or
>    604-3086
>    Mountain View, CA 94043                  fax: (650) 961-9705
>
>    http://leonid.arc.nasadot gov
>    http://aio.arc.nasadot gov/~leonid/
>
> The archive and Web site for our list is at http://www.meteorobs.org
> To stop getting all email from the 'meteorobs' lists, use our Webform:
> http://www.meteorobs.org/subscribe.html

The archive and Web site for our list is at http://www.meteorobs.org
To stop getting all email from the 'meteorobs' lists, use our Webform:
http://www.meteorobs.org/subscribe.html
References: