The 2022 Encounter of the Outburst Material from Comet 73P/Schwassmann--Wachmann~3

Abstract

The encounter of the meteoric material from 73P/Schmassmann--Wachmann~3 produced during the comet's 1995 outburst in May 2022 provides a rare and valuable opportunity to understand a fragmenting comet. Here we explore various ejection configurations and their impact on the meteor outburst detected in the early hours of UT 2022 May 31. We show that the dust must have been ejected $\sim 4$ to $5\times$ faster than calculated by water-ice sublimation model to best match the observed meteor activity. As only a small subset of particles with a narrow range of cross-section is expected to have reached the Earth, the large spread of meteor brightness likely indicates the presence of large but porous meteoroids in the trail. Other effects such as an enhanced lunar sodium tail and a visible glow from the meteoroid trail may have also occurred during the encounter.

arXiv commentMNRAS in press

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