Meteoroid mass determination from underdense trails

Abstract

This paper presents a new method to estimate the meteoroid mass from specular meteor observations. The basis of this method is the ability of a standard meteor radar to measure meteoroid head velocity, the height of detection, the source radiant (on a statistical basis) and the electron line density in the specular point. The electron line density can be related to the mass ablation rate by applying an ionization efficiency model. Selecting potential meteoroids from the Geminid meteor shower according to their source radiant and velocity distribution and combining all of these measurements with a numerical single body meteor ablation model permits to compute the meteoroid mass, deceleration and temperature in the specular point. The pre-atmospheric properties of an average meteoroid are estimated by fitting the single body ablation model to the estimates of the meteor parameters in the specular points.