1997 Leonid Shower from Space

Abstract

In November 1997, the Midcourse Space Experiment satellite (MSX) was deployed to observe the Leonid shower from space. The shower lived up to expectations, with abundant bright fireballs. Twenty-nine meteors were detected by a wide-angle, visible wavelength, camera near the limb of the Earth in a 48-minute interval, and three meteors by the narrow field camera. This amounts to a meteoroid influx of 5.5 ± 0.6 10 kin−2 hr−1 for masses > 0.3 gram. The limiting magnitude for limb observations of Leonid meteors was measured at Mv = −1.5 magn. The Leonid shower magnitude population index was 1.6 ± 0.2 down to Mv = −7 magn., with no sign of an upper mass cut-off.