An Optical Survey for mm-Sized Interstellar Meteoroids

Details An Optical Survey for mm-Sized Interstellar Meteoroids An Optical Survey for mm-Sized Interstellar Meteoroids

2011-10-26

arxiv.org/abs/1110.5882v1

Astronomy and Astrophysics

Astrophysics

Earth and Planetary Astrophysics

15 pages, 2 figures, accepted by ApJ

Scientific paper

We report high resolution multi-station observations of meteors by the Canadian Automated Meteor Observatory (CAMO) recorded from June 2009 to August 2010. Our survey has a limiting detection magnitude of +5 mag in R-band, equivalent to a limiting meteoroid mass of ~2*E-7 kg. The high metric trajectory accuracy (of the order of 30 m perpendicular to the solution and 200 m along-track) allows us to determine velocities with average uncertainty of < 1.5% in speed and ~0.4 degr in radiant direction. A total of 1739 meteors had measured orbits. The data has been searched for meteors in hyperbolic orbits, which are potentially of interstellar origin. We found 22 potential hyperbolic meteors among our sample, with only two of them having a speed at least three sigma above the hyperbolic limit. For our one year survey we find no clear evidence of interstellar meteoroids at mm-sizes in a weighted time-area product of ~1*E4 km^2*h. Backward integrations performed for these 22 potentially hyperbolic meteors to check for close encounters with planets show no considerable changes in their orbits. Detailed examination leads us to conclude that our few identified events are most likely the result of measurement error. We find an upper limit of f_ISP < 2*E-4/(km^2*h) for the flux of interstellar meteoroids at Earth with a limiting mass of m > 2*E-7 kg.

Affiliated with

Also associated with

No associations

Rating

An Optical Survey for mm-Sized Interstellar Meteoroids does not yet have a rating. At this time, there are no reviews or comments for this scientific paper.

If you have personal experience with An Optical Survey for mm-Sized Interstellar Meteoroids, we encourage you to share that experience with our LandOfFree.com community. Your opinion is very important and An Optical Survey for mm-Sized Interstellar Meteoroids will most certainly appreciate the feedback.

Rate now

Comments { 0 }

Profile ID: LFWR-SCP-O-718021