Speaker
Description
The disintegration of small Solar System bodies by rotational fission, collisions or cometary activity leads to meteoroids. Although most of these objects are small (less than 1 mm), upon impact, they can damage the increasing near-Earth civilian and military infrastructure. Thus, knowing the size distribution of these objects is crucial to plan avoidance maneuvers, shielding spacecrafts, and future bases on exposed Solar System objects (e.g. the Moon).
In this study we look at several meteoroid entries in the Earth's atmosphere which were detected my multiple instruments. Most of these objects have also a meteorite recovered from the strewn field, providing the exact chemical composition. By studying the atmospheric data we found that the brightness measurements provide the best method to estimate of meteoroid size. These results are allowing us to so only looking at the ever increasing video data.
These results will help to calibrate other equipment (e.g. lightning mappers, infrasound), thus allowing to conduct meteoroid impact risk estimations for the Earth and Moon.