ASGARD All-Sky Camera Network
Research Projects
The ASGARD All Sky network, as one instrumental component of the Southern Ontario Meteor Network (SOMN), detects many cm-sized and larger meteoroids ablating in the atmosphere over Southern Ontario.
There are many reasons to study smaller, centimetre-sized meteoroids, a size range generally not recorded by all-sky photographic cameras (except at very high velocities). Meteoroids in this size regime are a major mass-loss mechanism for comets (Sykes and Walker, 1992), and as such meteor showers tend to be most detectable at such sizes, making statistical studies possible. In particular, meteoroids in this range (which produce meteors at or just below the threshold of the fireball category, depending on speed) are bright enough to be amenable to multi-instrument observations. This means that many events can be recorded in detail to provide constraints for numerical entry models. It is this latter application which was the main design driver for the development of an all-sky camera network as part of the multi-instrumental Southern Ontario Meteor Network (SOMN).
A selection of projects using ASGARD data include:
- Study of specific meteor shower activity from ASGARD records
- Correlating orbits and apparent strength of many ASGARD-observed meteors as a means to gauge the statistical distribution of strengths of smaller bodies in the solar system
- Comparison of modelled and observed behaviour for specific events as a means to check ablation models/codes
- Use observations of ASGARD events to attempt to locate precovery imagery from telescopic surveys of larger ASGARD fireballs (meteoroids) to link telescopically inferred properties of NEOs and physical structure inferred from ablation in the atmosphere
- Study of flight dynamics and pre-impact orbit determination for meteorite producing fireballs.
- Comparison of light production with ionization production through simultaneous radar - video measurements of bright fireballs
- Comparison of photometric mass estimates and infrasonic mass estimates for a large suite of simultaneously registered events
