On the origin of the Southern Delta Aquariids meteor shower

Abstract

We determine the begin and end heights of meteors to calculate and compare the median kB parameter (Ceplecha, 1967) of several meteor showers observed throughout 2013. This parameter gives an indication on the type of parent body from which meteor showers originate. We propose that the meteoroids giving rise to the Southern Delta Aquariids consist of high strength material, likely asteroidal, unlike most meteor showers. In particular their parent body could be a C-type asteroid. We discuss the potential candidates in the light of existing literature and conclude that it could be a combination of comet 96P and asteroid 2003 EH1, with a higher relative abundance of the asteroid. The following results are obtained using observations from CILBO, a double station meteor camera set-up in the Canary Islands. Meteors are detected with MetRec, a meteor detection software (Molau, 1999) and the characteristics of their trajectories are computed using the Meteor Orbit and Trajectory Software (Koschny and Rio, 2002).