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P.G. Brown (University of Western Ontario), M.D. Campbell-Brown (European Space Agency)
We present the first results from a newly established triple-frequency, multi-station meteor orbital radar operating near London, Ontario, Canada. The radar system sensitivity is near an equivalent meteor visual magnitude of +8 (corresponding to a meteoroid with a mass of ~ 10-5 g at 30 km/s) The system is fully automated, recording both transmit power and receiver noise levels. This orbital radar makes possible careful measurement of the variation in the general sporadic meteoroid background as well as minor and major meteor shower fluxes and orbits. Our suite of 250,000+ meteoroid orbits has led to a reexamination of the velocity distribution of interplanetary meteoroids detected at the Earth, which we find to have a substantial excess at higher velocities than has been previously reported. Comparison of our orbital dataset with known near-Earth asteroid orbits suggests far fewer NEAs have associated, young meteoroid streams than has been suggested by other workers. In addition, initial examination of the meteoroid velocity distribution places a limit of 1.8 recorded meteor echoes which are more than 2\sigma above the interstellar velocity limit.
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Bulletin of the American Astronomical Society, 35 #4
© 2003. The American Astronomical Soceity.