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JOURNAL OF GEOPHYSICAL RESEARCH, VOL. 106, NO. A10, PAGES 21,525–21,541, 2001

Observations of persistent Leonid meteor trails 2. Photometry and numerical modeling

C. A. Kruschwitz

School of Electrical and Computer Engineering, Cornell University, Ithaca, New York


M. C. Kelley

School of Electrical and Computer Engineering, Cornell University, Ithaca, New York


C. S. Gardner

Department of Electrical and Computer Engineering, University of Illinois, Urbana, Illinois


G. Swenson

Department of Electrical and Computer Engineering, University of Illinois, Urbana, Illinois


A. Z. Liu

Department of Electrical and Computer Engineering, University of Illinois, Urbana, Illinois


X. Chu

Department of Electrical and Computer Engineering, University of Illinois, Urbana, Illinois


J. D. Drummond

Starfire Optical Range, Directed Energy Directorate, Air Force Research Laboratory, Kirtland Air Force Base, Albuquerque, New Mexico


B. W. Grime

Starfire Optical Range, Directed Energy Directorate, Air Force Research Laboratory, Kirtland Air Force Base, Albuquerque, New Mexico


W. T. Armstrong

Los Alamos National Laboratory, Los Alamos, New Mexico


J. M. C. Plane

School of Environmental Sciences, University of East Anglia, Norwich, England, United Kingdom


P. Jenniskens

Search For Extraterrestrial Intelligence Institute, NASA Ames Research Center, Moffet Field, California


Abstract

During the 1998 Leonid meteor shower, multi-instrument observations of persistent meteor trains were made from the Starfire Optical Range on Kirtland Air Force Base, New Mexico, and from a secondary site in nearby Placitas, New Mexico. The University of Illinois Na resonance lidar measured the Na density and temperature in the trains, while various cameras captured images and videos of the trains, some of which were observed to persist for more than 30 min. The Na density measurements allow the contribution of Na airglow to the observed train luminescence to be quantified for the first time. To do this, persistent train luminescence is numerically modeled. Cylindrical symmetry is assumed, and observed values of the Na density, temperature, and diffusivity are used. It is found that the expected Na luminosity is consistent with narrowband CCD all-sky camera observations, but that these emissions can contribute only a small fraction of the total light observed in a 0.5–1 μ bandwidth. Other potential luminosity sources are examined, in particular, light resulting from the possible excitation of monoxides of meteoric metals (particularly FeO) and O 2 ( b 1 ∑ g + ) during reactions between atmospheric oxygen species and meteoric metals. It is found that the total luminosity of these combined processes falls somewhat short of explaining the observed brightness, and thus additional luminosity sources still are needed. In addition, the brightness distribution, the so-called hollow cylinder effect, remains unexplained.

Received 16 May 2000; accepted 16 March 2001.

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Citation: Kruschwitz, C. A., et al. (2001), Observations of persistent Leonid meteor trails 2. Photometry and numerical modeling, J. Geophys. Res., 106(A10), 21,525–21,541.