A new method for measuring the meteor mass index: application to the 2018 Draconid meteor shower outburst

Abstract

Context. Several authors predicted an outburst of the Draconid meteor shower in 2018, but with an uncertain level of activity. Aims. Optical meteor observations were used to derive the population and mass indices, flux, and radiant positions of Draconid meteors. Methods. 90 minutes of multi-station observations after the predicted peak of activity were performed using highly sensitive Electron Multiplying Charge Coupled Device (EMCCD) cameras. The data calibration is discussed in detail. A novel maximum likelihood estimation method of computing the population and mass index with robust error estimation was developed. We apply the method to observed Draconids and use the values to derive the flux. Meteor trajectories are computed and compared to predicted radiant positions from meteoroid ejection models. Results. We found that the mass index was $1.74\pm 0.18$ in the 30 minute bin after the predicted peak, and $2.32\pm 0.27$ in the next 60 minutes. The location and the dispersion of the radiant matches well to modeled values, but there is an offset of $0.4^{\circ }$ in solar longitude.

arXiv commentAccepted for publication in A&A

References in corpus (14)

• Gaia Data Release 2. Summary of the contents and survey properties
• Power-law distributions in empirical data
• MultiNest: an efficient and robust Bayesian inference tool for cosmology and particle physics
• A study of fragmentation processes using a discrete element method
• Power-law size distributions in geoscience revisited
• Modeling the measurement accuracy of pre-atmosphere velocities of meteoroids
• A reproducible method to determine the meteoroid mass index
• Meteor Shower Modeling: Past and Future Draconid Outbursts
• The Unexpected 2012 Draconid Meteor Storm
• Radar Observations of the 2011 October Draconid Outburst
• The 2011 October Draconids outburst. I. Orbital elements, meteoroid fluxes and 21P/Giacobini-Zinner delivered mass to Earth
• Spectral, photometric, and dynamic analysis of eight Draconid meteors
• Estimating trajectories of meteors: an observational Monte Carlo approach -- II. Results
• The Draconid meteoroid stream 2018: prospects for satellite impact detection

Cited by in corpus (7)

• The Global Meteor Network -- Methodology and First Results
• Direct measurement of decimeter-sized rocky material in the Oort cloud
• Computing optical meteor flux using Global Meteor Network data
• Iron Rain: measuring the occurrence rate and origin of small iron meteoroids at Earth
• Tau-Herculid meteor shower on night 30/31 May, 2022, and properties of the meteoroids
• A Statistical Approach to Quantifying Uncertainty in Meteoroid Physical Properties
• Meteor clusters: tracing meteoroid fragmentation in near-Earth space