The Physical Theory of Meteors. VIII. Fragmentation as Cause of the Faintmeteor Anomaly.

Abstract

The observed decelerations and light-curves of bright meteors are in good agreement with the simple ballistic theory, while fainter meteors photographed with the Super-Schmidt cameras in New Mexico show startling anomalies. In particular, the durations of faint meteors are shorter and the decelerations increase faster than predicted by the theory, when the mass is computed from the integration of the luminous-intensity-curve, in the same fashion as for bright meteors. Extreme fragility and progressive fragmentation seem to account for these and other anomalies. The concept of pellet4ike meteors must be replaced with that of a cluster of breaking fragments in the case of most smaller bodies.