Iron, calcium, and potassium atom densities in the trails of Leonids and other meteors: Strong evidence for differential ablation

Details Iron, calcium, and potassium atom densities in the trails of Leonids and other meteors: Strong evidence for differential ablation Iron, calcium, and potassium atom densities in the trails of Leonids and other meteors: Strong evidence for differential ablation

Nov 1999

adsabs.harvard.edu/cgi-bin/nph-data_query?bibcode=1999m%26ps...34.1017v&link_type=abstract

Meteoritics & Planetary Science, vol. 34, no. 6, pp. 1017-1027 (1999).

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Scientific paper

We report on studies of the Fe, Ca, and K atom densities in the trails of meteors. The measurements of the densities were taken simultaneously and in a common volume by three groundbased lidars. We report and analyze the data obtained during two nights of Leonid showers (Nov 16/17 of 1996 and 1998) and of one night five days after the 1998 Leonids. The lidar-observed trails of Leonids differ from those of other meteor showers in both their mean altitude as well as mean metal composition. The Leonid trails show a highly depressed Ca/Fe abundance ratio in comparison to CI meteoritic composition. Our observations are interpreted with the help of a numerical model which describes the ablation processes occurring during the high speed entry of meteoroids into the Earth's atmosphere. We conclude that for the lidar-observed meteoroids, the ablation process occurs differentially for the three elements. This leads to a mixture of metals in the meteor trails the composition of which is strongly altitude dependent and deviates at any one altitude significantly from a CI meteoritic composition. The model predicts differing altitudes and durations of trail observations for different showers, allowing us to tentatively assign the origin to the observed trails.

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