Radio Signatures of November 1998 Leonid Meteor on Transionospheric VHF Satellite Signal

Abstract

This letter presents, to our knowledge for the first time, two cases of scintillations of the 244 MHz satellite beacon signal recorded from the geostationary satellite FLEETSATCOM (FSC) (Long: 73°E) at the Haringhata Field Station (HFS) (Lat: 22.97°N Long: 88.50°E Dip: 32°N) of the University of Calcutta on the night of November 16/17, 1998, which corresponds to the peak period of the Leonid meteor shower in terms of its rate and visual magnitude. Scintillations produced by the sporadic-E layer (E s) generated by meteoric ionization are transient and quasi-periodic in nature. This type of scintillations have much shorter durations (∼30–100 s) than those normally observed at night in the equatorial latitudes (∼5 min to couple of hours). It is characterized by a primary deep fade out in field strength, associated with regular ringing patterns before and after it. Generation of quasi-periodic scintillations is believed to be due to a small-scale (scale size ∼100–1000 m) density enhancement or blob which acts as a radio lens in the path of the transionospheric signal. Assuming one-dimensional density irregularities, the peak phase deviation introduced in the radio wave passing through is estimated. The observed scintillation patterns have been simulated considering a series of isolated ionospheric irregularities of different strengths and scale sizes. Critical frequency of the E s layer (f 0E s) measured by the Ahmedabad ionosonde (Lat: 23.03 0N Long: 72.40 0E Dip: 34°N) for the same night shows two isolated spikes which may be due to a sudden increase in plasma density caused by meteoric ionization. In addition, the meteor visual magnitude and cumulative mean flux have been calculated using the meteor intensity data available on the Internet.