Bibcode
DOI
Ortiz, J. L.; Quesada, J. A.; Aceituno, J.; Aceituno, F. J.; Bellot Rubio, L. R.
Bibliographical reference
The Astrophysical Journal, Volume 576, Issue 1, pp. 567-573.
Advertised on:
9
2002
Journal
Citations
55
Refereed citations
40
Description
We present observations of lunar Leonid impact flashes recorded in 2001
November from Spain. Four impact flashes were detected on November 18.
Another flash was also recorded on the same night, which appears to be
impact related, and two more on that night are possibly, but not
unambiguously, of impact nature. On November 19 another flash was
detected, which very likely resulted from an impact. The brightest
impact flash reached a peak brightness of 5.2+/-0.3 mag in V; it had a
very dim precursor just 0.02 s prior to peak brightness and had a very
long lasting afterglow that remained visible for more than 600 ms with
oscillations in brightness; this unique and unexpected behavior
challenges current models of impact flashes. The other flashes did not
show such a behavior and remained visible for a few tens of
milliseconds. Adopting the luminous efficiency derived for the 1999
lunar Leonids (2×10-3), our observations can be used to
estimate meteoroid fluxes. The observations are compatible with a flux
of 0.1 meteoroids of mass larger than 2×10-8 kg
km-2 hr-1 on November 18 at 18:15 UT, provided
that a mass index of 1.69 is used. Both the flux and the mass index
agree with meteor observations carried out in 2001 from several
locations on Earth.