On the Occurrence of Bright Taurids
Abstract
Following David Asher and Kiyoshi Izumi's timely warning about possible unusual Taurid activity in 1998 [1], this present paper re-examines the overall occurrence of bright (magnitude 0 or less) Taurids from IMO records between 1988 and 1997. A generally higher percentage of such bright Taurids, and also fireballs, is found during the period from October 23 to November 15, coincident both with the typical Taurid maximum epoch (November 5-6 to November 12-13 [2]) and the period suspected of occasional enhancements due to "swarms" of material within the Taurid stream, from late October to early November. Although individual years' statistics show fluctuations in the appearance of brighter Taurid events within or without this period, a remarkably consistent difference in the corrected mean magnitude m_6.5 of 0.2 is found in comparing the October 23 to November 15 spell with the entire Taurids' active period. The Taurids in the former period are consistently brighter. Taurid fireball proportions are also compared with those in the Perseid and Geminid showers, and the sporadics.
- Publication:
-
WGN, Journal of the International Meteor Organization
- Pub Date:
- February 1999
- Bibcode:
- 1999JIMO...27...53M