Bibcode
DOI
Bellot Rubio, L. R.; Ortiz, J. L.; Sada, P. V.
Referencia bibliográfica
The Astrophysical Journal, Volume 542, Issue 1, pp. L65-L68.
Fecha de publicación:
10
2000
Revista
Número de citas
66
Número de citas referidas
54
Descripción
An analysis of the optical flashes produced by Leonid meteoroids
impacting the Moon in 1999 November is carried out in order to estimate
the fraction of kinetic energy converted into radiation, the so-called
luminous efficiency η. It is shown that the observational data are
consistent with luminous efficiencies of 2×10-3 in the
wavelength range of 400-900 nm with an uncertainty of about 1 order of
magnitude. This experimental value of η is significantly larger than
previous estimates for meteoroids of asteroidal composition based on
numerical calculations and scaling laws from laboratory collisions.
According to our results, the luminous efficiency might vary with mass,
i.e., the smaller impactors converting less kinetic energy into light
and vice versa. A comparison with recent numerical simulations for
meteoroids of cometary composition is also carried out.