Physical Sciences and Mathematics Commons^™

First Observations Of Long-Lived Meteor Trains With Resonance Lidar And Other Optical Instruments, M. C. Kelley, C. Gardner, J Drummond, T Armstrong, A Liu, Chu G. Papen, C Kruschwitz, P. Loughmiller, B Grime, J. Engelman

Physical Sciences - Daytona Beach

In November 1998 the earth passed through a maximum in the cometary material responsible for the yearly Leonids meteor shower. The meteor storm event produced numerous examples of long-lived chemiluminescent trails--visible to the naked eye over New Mexico, where a major observation campaign was centered. One trail was detected for over an hour with a CCD camera employing a narrow sodium filter, and many others were observed for over ten minutes each. For the first time, sodium densities in such trails were measured while also being imaged in sodium light. We have verified one source of long-lived light emissions--a sodium-catalyzed …