``Atmospheric holes'' are not small comets

Details ``Atmospheric holes'' are not small comets ``Atmospheric holes'' are not small comets

Aug 2000

adsabs.harvard.edu/cgi-bin/nph-data_query?bibcode=2000jgr...10518575h&link_type=abstract

Journal of Geophysical Research, Volume 105, Issue A8, p. 18575-18580

Physics

1

Atmospheric Composition And Structure: Airglow And Aurora, Planetology: Comets And Small Bodies: Impact Phenomena, Planetology: Comets And Small Bodies: Orbital And Rotational Dynamics, Planetology: Solar System Objects: Comets

Scientific paper

Frank and Sigwarth [1993, 1999] have promoted the hypothesis of a population of small ``house-sized'' comets in near-parabolic orbits that are nearly tangent with the Earth's and rain down on the Earth at a rate of ~20/min. The hypothesis is based on ``holes'' in the dayglow of the Earth's atmosphere, which they first claimed to see in images from the Dynamics Explorer 1 satellite, and more recently in images from the Polar satellite. One of the key aspects of the claimed observations is that the atmospheric holes appear to be more numerous on the morning hemisphere of the Earth, to which Frank and Sigwarth draw analogy to radar meteors, which show a similar asymmetry. In this paper, I show that the distribution of orbits posited by Frank and Sigwarth yield a maximum flux in the afternoon, the opposite asymmetry from the claimed observations. The only orbits which yield the correct diurnal asymmetry, and preserve acceptably low entry speeds, are orbits interior to the Earth's having perihelia near the orbit of Mercury. Thus any relationship of ``atmospheric holes'' to ``small comets,'' or icy bodies from the outer solar system, can be ruled out.

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