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

Abstract

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.

Not So Fast: A New Catalog of Meteor Persistent Trains

“…Emission in IR wavelengths has been detected during the continuum phase- Hapgood (1980) observed a PT exclusively in the 700-900 nm NIR regime for more than half an hour and attributed the luminosity to the same O 2 (0,1) emission mentioned previously; Kruschwitz et al (2001) also supports O 2 as the source of the NIR component. Alternatively, Clemesha et al (2001) and Vasilyev et al (2021) assert that OH, not O 2 , is instead responsible. Lastly, heated atmospheric molecules, for example, CO, CO 2 , CH 4 , and H 2 O, were identified in the mid-IR (3-13 μm) regime with temperatures of ∼300 K (Russell et al, 1998).…”

“…(2001) and Vasilyev et al. (2021) assert that OH, not O 2 , is instead responsible. Lastly, heated atmospheric molecules, for example, CO, CO 2 , CH 4 , and H 2 O, were identified in the mid‐IR (3–13 μm) regime with temperatures of ∼300 K (Russell et al., 1998).…”