Which fireballs are meteorites? A study of the Prairie Network photographic meteor data
Abstract
Plausible meteorite mass distributions imply that in the Prairie Network data there must be many fainter fireballs produced by meteorites with physical properties that, except for mass, are very similar to the recovered ordinary chondrite ( H5) Lost City. Four criteria are proposed for identifying these other meteorites among the fireballs. These are: deceleration to final velocity ≤8 km/sec; a photometric mass/dynamic mass ratio within a factor of 2 of that of Lost City, agreement of the observed and theoretical single body end heights (calculated using dynamic mass), and a lightcurve no more irregular than those of the three recovered fireballs. These criteria can be related to the PE criterion of Ceplecha and McCrosky, but include a wider range of observational data, and also differ from the PE criterion in avoiding inclusion of data not helpful to the particular problem of identifying ordinary chondrite fireballs. By use of our criteria, 27 Prairie Network fireballs are identified as being meteorites comparable to or greater in strength and density to Lost City, most of these should be ordinary chondrites. The orbital element distributions of these objects span a wide range, include those of recovered fireballs, and show that the 4.0-AU aphelion of the Pribram meteorite is not unusually large. Perihelia are concentrated near 1.0 AU, in agreement with previous inferences from time-of-fall and radiant distributions, demonstrating the usefulness of these data based on visual observations.
- Publication:
-
Icarus
- Pub Date:
- November 1981
- DOI:
- 10.1016/0019-1035(81)90112-3
- Bibcode:
- 1981Icar...48..308W
- Keywords:
-
- Astronomical Photography;
- Bolides;
- Chondrites;
- Mass Distribution;
- Meteorites;
- Aphelions;
- Astronomical Photometry;
- Dynamic Characteristics;
- Light Curve;
- Mass Ratios;
- Orbital Elements;
- Perihelions;
- Radiant Flux Density;
- Solar System;
- METEORS;
- METEORITES;
- TECHNIQUES;
- COMPARISONS;
- VELOCITY;
- PHOTOMETRY;
- MASS;
- LIGHTCURVES;
- ORDINARY CHONDRITES;
- ORBITAL ELEMENTS;
- DISTRIBUTION;
- ORBITS;
- DECELERATION;
- ANALYSIS