Analysis of Perseid meteor head echo data collected using the Advanced Research Projects Agency Long‐Range Tracking and Instrumentation Radar (ALTAIR)

Close, Sigrid; Hunt, Stephen; Minardi, Michael J.; McKeen, F. M.

doi:10.1029/1999rs002277

Cited by 59 publications

(48 citation statements)

References 10 publications

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“…Sato et al, 2000;Close and Hunt, 2000;Chau and Woodman, 2004;Pellinen-Wannberg et al, 2004;Chau and Galindo, 2008;Sparks et al, 2010;Kero et al, 2011). This technique uses the fact that the ablation process forms a detectable plasma around the meteoroid.…”

Section: Introductionmentioning

confidence: 99%

Determination of meteor-head echo trajectories using the interferometric capabilities of MAARSY

et al. 2013

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Abstract. During the flight of a meteoroid through the neutral atmosphere, the high kinetic energy is sufficient to ionize the meteoric constituents. Radar echoes coming from plasma irregularities surrounding the meteoroids are called meteor-head echoes, and can be detected by HPLA radar systems. Measurements of these echoes were conducted with MAARSY (Middle Atmosphere Alomar Radar System) in December 2010. The interferometric capabilities of the radar system permit the determination of the meteor trajectories within the radar beam with high accuracy. The received data are used to gain information about entry velocities, source radiants, observation heights and other meteoroid parameters. Our preliminary results indicate that the majority of meteors have masses between 10 −10 and 10 −3 kg and the mean masses of the sporadic meteors and Gemenids meteors are ∼ 10 −8 kg.

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Section: Introductionmentioning

confidence: 99%

Determination of meteor-head echo trajectories using the interferometric capabilities of MAARSY

et al. 2013

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“…ALTAIR has a 43 m diameter mechanically steered parabolic dish, and simultaneously transmits a peak power of 6 MW at two frequencies (VHF-160 MHz, and UHF-422 MHz) [Close et al, 2000[Close et al, , 2002a[Close et al, , 2002b[Close et al, , 2002c. The radar characteristics are described in detail in those references.…”

Section: Methodsmentioning

confidence: 99%

Analysis of ALTAIR 1998 meteor radar data

Zinn

Colestock

et al. 2011

J. Geophys. Res.

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[1] We describe a new analysis of a set of 32 UHF meteor radar traces recorded with the 422 MHz Advanced Research Project Agency Long-Range Tracking and Identification Radar facility in November 1998. Emphasis is on the absolute velocity measurements and inferences that can be drawn from them regarding the meteoroid masses and mass densities. We find that the 3-D velocity versus altitude data can be fitted as quadratic functions of the path integrals of the atmospheric densities versus distance, and deceleration rates derived from those fits all show the expected behavior of increasing with decreasing altitude. We also describe a computer model of the coupled processes of collisional heating, radiative cooling, evaporative cooling and ablation, and deceleration for meteoroids composed of defined mixtures of mineral constituents. For each of the cases in the data set, we ran the model starting with the measured initial velocity and trajectory inclination and with various trial values of the quantity mr s 2 (initial mass times mass density squared) and then compared the computed deceleration versus altitude curves versus the measured ones. In this way we arrived at the best fit values of the mr s 2 for each of the measured traces. Then further, assuming various trial values of the density r s , we compared the computed mass versus altitude curves with similar curves for the same set of meteoroids determined previously from the measured radar cross sections and an electrostatic scattering model. In this way we arrived at estimates of the best fit mass densities r s for each of the cases.

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“…The emphases of the analysis technique development have been to implement automated real-time analysis of meteor parameters (Wen et al, 2004), remove non-periodic bursty interference (Wen et al, 2005b), and separate incoherent scatter from meteor signals (Wen et al, 2005a(Wen et al, , 2007. Close et al (2000) used the interferometric capabilities of the Advanced Research Projects Agency (ARPA) Long-Range Tracking and Instrumentation Radar (ALTAIR) to calculate atmospheric meteoroid trajectories of meteors observed during the 1998 Perseid meteor shower, and during the 1998 Leonid meteor storm (Close et al, 2002). No conclusive evidence of shower meteor detections were found, in accordance with the (subsequently estimated) very low probability of detecting such meteors during the observations (Brown et al, 2001).…”

Section: Eiscatmentioning

confidence: 99%

“…Since the 1990s, head echo observations have been conducted with most HPLA radar facilities around the world (Pellinen- Wannberg and Wannberg, 1994;Mathews et al, 1997;Close et al, 2000;Sato et al, 2000;Chau and Woodman, 2004;Mathews et al, 2008;Malhotra and Mathews, 2011). These radar systems have diverse system characteristics in terms of operating frequency, dish or phased array antenna, aperture size etc.…”

Section: Introductionmentioning

confidence: 99%

A meteor head echo analysis algorithm for the lower VHF band

et al. 2012

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Abstract.We have developed an automated analysis scheme for meteor head echo observations by the 46.5 MHz Middle and Upper atmosphere (MU) radar near Shigaraki, Japan (34.85 • N, 136.10 • E). The analysis procedure computes meteoroid range, velocity and deceleration as functions of time with unprecedented accuracy and precision. This is crucial for estimations of meteoroid mass and orbital parameters as well as investigations of the meteoroid-atmosphere interaction processes. In this paper we present this analysis procedure in detail. The algorithms use a combination of singlepulse-Doppler, time-of-flight and pulse-to-pulse phase correlation measurements to determine the radial velocity to within a few tens of metres per second with 3.12 ms time resolution. Equivalently, the precision improvement is at least a factor of 20 compared to previous single-pulse measurements. Such a precision reveals that the deceleration increases significantly during the intense part of a meteoroid's ablation process in the atmosphere. From each received pulse, the target range is determined to within a few tens of meters, or the order of a few hundredths of the 900 m long range gates. This is achieved by transmitting a 13-bit Barker code oversampled by a factor of two at reception and using a novel range interpolation technique. The meteoroid velocity vector is determined from the estimated radial velocity by carefully taking the location of the meteor target and the angle from its trajectory to the radar beam into account. The latter is determined from target range and bore axis offset. We have identified and solved the signal processing issue giving rise to the peculiar signature in signal to noise ratio plots reported by Galindo et al. (2011), and show how to use the range interpolation technique to differentiate the effect of signal processing from physical processes.

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Analysis of Perseid meteor head echo data collected using the Advanced Research Projects Agency Long‐Range Tracking and Instrumentation Radar (ALTAIR)

Cited by 59 publications

References 10 publications

Determination of meteor-head echo trajectories using the interferometric capabilities of MAARSY

Determination of meteor-head echo trajectories using the interferometric capabilities of MAARSY

Analysis of ALTAIR 1998 meteor radar data

A meteor head echo analysis algorithm for the lower VHF band

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