The Canadian Meteor Orbit Radar II: A new Facility for Measurement of the Dust Environment in near-Earth space
Abstract
The Canadian Meteor Orbit Radar (CMOR) is a backscatter, multi-station meteor radar operating at 29.85 MHz. CMOR has been in operation as a three station system since 2001, but a major upgrade in 2009 has expanded the system to six stations and doubled the transmit power to 15 kW; the new facility is termed CMOR II. CMOR II measures 5000 individual orbits per day of meteoroids with masses 10-8 kg. These large number statistics permit near real-time identification of as many as a dozen significant daily meteor showers, through application of a 3D wavelet transform. As individual meteor echoes are detected at up to six stations, CMOR II is able to measure electron line density profiles and decelerations for select events. This permits estimation of meteoroid bulk density through comparison with entry models for particles as small 100 μm. For events with more than four station detections, errors in radiant and speed are comparable to similar measurements made with video systems. Making use of multiple, independent techniques for speed measurements, including time-of-flight, Fresnel amplitude and Fresnel phase fitting, it is possible to estimate speed accuracy for individual events. Monte Carlo modeling of individual echoes allow a separate estimate for uncertainty in both speed and radiant measurement. Here we present initial results from CMOR II measurements of major meteor showers including the 2012 Daytime Arietids and South Delta Aquariid streams. Detections of several unusual meteor shower outbursts with CMOR II and verification of previously reported weak showers will also be shown. We will demonstrate the capacity of CMOR II for individual meteoroid physical characterization by using measured trajectory, speed, deceleration and electron line density measurements combined with entry model fits to estimate meteoroid parameters. Funding from the NASA Meteoroid Environment Office through cooperative agreement NNX11AB76A is gratefully acknowledged.
- Publication:
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AAS/Division for Planetary Sciences Meeting Abstracts #44
- Pub Date:
- October 2012
- Bibcode:
- 2012DPS....4430204B