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LEONID DAILY NEWS: November 23, 2002


A Leonid meteor frozen in flight

Figure 1: High Frame-Rate Images of meteors.


"SHOCK" CONFIRMED

University of Alaska at Fairbanks researcher Hans Stenbaek-Nielsen operated a high-speed camera onboard the DC8 and recorded 59 meteors at 1000 frames/s. None was captured brighter than last year's "shocking Leonid", but several fainter ones confirm the formation of a shock-like feature, which is found to open up in proportion to the brightness of the meteor, not the penetration depth in the atmosphere. This is unexpected for a true shock front, hence another mechanism is suspected responsible.

In addition, the peculiar diffuse high altitude beginning of two bright fireballs was captured (see inset lower left), a phenomenon discovered by Pavel Spurny and Hans Betlem during the 1998 campaign.




Previous news items:
2002:
Nov 23 - "Shock" confirmed
Nov 22 - New molecular band detected
Nov 21 - Leonids tracked
Nov 20 - Asteroids named after Leonid MAC participants
Nov 19 - Leonid storms rich in faint meteors
Oct 22 - Collecting meteoroid debris from snow cover
Oct 21 - Highlights COSPAR/World Space Congress
Aug 31 - First UV spectrum: Leonid from space
2001:
Dec 11 - Shocking Leonid
Dec 01 - Moon impacts
Nov 26 - Near-IR persistent train emission
Nov 24 - Results of near-real time flux measurements
Nov 22 - Wowh! Optical meteor spectra
2000:
Dec. 25 - Ursid shower circular IMO
Dec. 24 - Ursid shows early release of sodium
Dec. 23 - Ursid outburst confirmed
Dec. 18 - Dec 22 Ursid outburst
Nov. 20 - A bacterial fingerprint?
Nov. 15 - HCN disappears mysteriously
Nov. 14 - Meteor shower from space
Nov. 13 - Organic fingerprint
Nov. 12 - Train airglow chemistry
Nov. 11 - Hard bits and persisting glows
Nov. 10 - Meteoroid debris detected
Nov. 09 - New meteor picture
Nov. 08 - Spin city
Nov. 07 - Meteors affect atmospheric chemistry
Nov. 06 - Listen to this!
Nov. 04 - Fear of heights?
Nov. 03 - The pale (infra-red) dot
Nov. 02 - Twin showers
Nov. 01 - Leonids approaching Earth
Oct. 31 - Prospects for Moon Impact Studies
Oct. 30 - Comet dust crumbled less fine
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Publication of results of this work is still in preparation.


 
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