Meteoroid Orbits Available from the IAU Meteor Data Center

Abstract

Since it was founded early in the 1980′s, the IAU Meteor Data Center (IAU MDC) has accumulated a large number of the meteoroid orbits measured worldwide so as to make these freely available to all interested researchers. The total number of orbits available is about 68,000, of which about 6,000 were determined using optical techniques (photographic or TV), the bulk having been detected using decameter radars. The observation sites range from various locations in the U.S.A., Canada, Australia, and in the former Soviet Union and Czechoslovakia; radar orbits from the Soviet Equatorial Expedition to Somalia are also archived. About 39,000 of the 62,000 radar orbits are derived from the Harvard Radar Meteor Project. Most of these programs were carried out during the 1960's and 1970′s, but still represent our best knowledge of the orbital distribution of interplanetary particles in the size range from 100 μm to 1 meter. A new survey currently in progress in New Zealand has so far rendered over 350,000 orbits, and it is anticipated that these will soon become available through the IAU MDC. Presently the 68,000 orbits archived in the IAU MDC are only available on magnetic recording media, but it is planned that they will shortly be made accessible via anonymous ftp.