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R.J. Weryk, P. Brown (Dept. of Physics & Astronomy, University of Western Ontario, Canada)
Using the CMOR system, a search was conducted through two years of archived radar data (more than one million orbits) for meteoroids having unbound hyperbolic orbits around the Sun. Making use of the fact that each echo has an individually measured error, we were able to apply a cut-off for heliocentric speeds more than three sigma above the parabolic limit as our selection criterion. Our search covered all potential interstellar meteoroids with pre-solar system speeds relative to the sun between 35 and 90 km/s, for meteoroid sizes larger than 150 micrometres. We have determined a lower limit flux (to the three sigma error level) of 3x10-6 meteoroids/km2/hr of possible extrasolar origin meteoroids in this size-speed range. This represents five events from our total of more than one million meteoroid orbits. We will also report an extension of this initial survey to hyperbolic orbits having excess speeds as low as 28 km/s relative to the sun.
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Bulletin of the American Astronomical Society, 36 #4
© 2004. The American Astronomical Soceity.