Observing meteors by creating artificial luminous clouds in the Earth’s atmosphere

В статье дается предварительная теоретическая оценка возможности применения нового способа наблюдения метеоров в атмосфере Земли с помощью искусственных светящихся облаков. При попадании метеоров в такие облака, образованные веществом с потенциалом ионизации в несколько раз меньшем потенциала ионизации атмосферных газов, происходит быстрая ионизация реагента облака за счет термического и ударного воздействия метеорного тела, приводящая к увеличению светимости метеорных следов. Предполагается, что такой эффект будет способствовать увеличению яркости слабых метеоров, находящихся на пороге обнаружения современных телевизионных камер. Это позволит проводить исследования метеоров и метеорных потоков, доступных ранее только радиолокационными методами наблюдения. The article provides a preliminary theoretical assessment of the possibility of using a new method of observing meteors in the Earth’s atmosphere using artificial luminous clouds. When meteors hit such clouds formed by a substance with an ionization potential several times lower than the ionization potential of atmospheric gases, the cloud reagent is rapidly ionized due to the thermal and impact effects of the meteor body, which leads to an increase in the luminosity of meteor tracks. It is assumed that this effect will increase the brightness of weak meteors, which are on the threshold of detection by modern TV cameras. This will make it possible to conduct studies of meteors and meteor showers that were previously available only by radar observation methods.

Studying a Long-Lasting Meteor Trail from Stereo Images and Radar Data

Unique observation of a long-lasting meteor trail of about half an hour duration is described. The trail resulted from a burning meteor from the Leonid storm flux in the middle latitudes over eastern Siberia. We describe three-dimensional morphological characteristics of both the meteor and the long-lasting trail using data from wide-angle CCD cameras. Additionally, we present the meteor and the trail radiolocation characteristics obtained with a meteor radar and ionosonde. The background dynamics of the upper atmosphere at the height where the long-lasting trail developed were observed using data from the meteor radar and Fabry-Perot interferometer. The obtained results allowed the conclusion that the dynamics of a long-lasting trail are conditioned by the wind. However, during the first minutes of trail development, it is possible that a high-speed component is present, resulting from explosion of the meteor body in the atmosphere. A primitive spectral analysis of the long-lasting trail's optical emissions and earlier studies point to hydroxyl molecules as a possible source of the glow. We believe the enhanced hydroxyl emission could be related to interaction of excited O(1D) oxygen atoms with meteor body water in the Earth's upper atmosphere.