Modeling the past and future activity of the Halleyid meteor showers

Context. We present a new numerical model of the η-Aquariid and Orionid meteor showers.
Aims: The model investigates the origin, variability, and age of the η-Aquariid and Orionid apparitions from 1985 to the present day in order to forecast their activity over the next several decades.
Methods: Through the numerical integration of millions of simulated meteoroids and a custom-made particle weighting scheme, we model the characteristics of every η-Aquariid and Orionid apparition between 1985 and 2050. The modeled showers are calibrated using 35 yr of meteor observations, including the shower activity profiles and interannual variability.
Results: Our model reproduces the general characteristics of the present-day η-Aquariids and part of the Orionid activity. Simulations suggest that the age of the η-Aquariids somewhat exceeds 5000 yr, while a greater fraction of the Orionids is composed of older material. The 1:6 mean motion resonance with Jupiter plays a major role in generating some (but not all) Halleyid stream outbursts. We find consistent evidence for a periodicity of 11.8 yr in both the observations and modeled maximum meteor rates for the Orionids. Weaker evidence of a 10.7 yr period in the peak activity for the η-Aquariids needs to be investigated with future meteor observations. The extension of our model to future years predicts no significant Orionid outbursts through 2050 and four significant η-Aquariid outbursts, in 2023, 2024, 2045, and 2046.

The movie associated to Fig. 11 is available at https://www.aanda.org