Automated detection and characterization of meteoroid from simultaneous optical and radar observations

Abstract:

Many uncertainties remain to be determined in meteoroid science: the distribution of meteor sources as well as each sources' mass flux; the effects of meteoroids on the ionosphere and thermosphere as both depositary of heavy metals and modifiers of the plasma background; and a correct characterization of their ablation process. These uncertainties strongly depend on the meteoroids' composition and consequentially on their mass. Classical mass computation techniques relies on single instrument observations, mainly optical and radar data, which give high error bounds on the mass estimate due to the use of luminous efficiency τ (for optical) and ionization probability β (for radar) parameters. In the following talk we will show the results from our experiments at the poker flat facility and highlight the benefits of using multiple data collection instruments. We will present an automated technique for detection of meteoroids in the acquired data and use it to cross calibrate τ and β and thus better infer meteorids' mass and bound their error.