[Simulation of UV spectra from the wake of a stony meteor in the upper atmosphere].
For stony meteors thrusting through a region with an altitude between 100-90 km in the upper atmosphere at different initial geocentric velocities, the effective temperatures are calculated based on Sparrow's particle-collision theory. Assuming different mixture ratios, particle number densities of certain dominant components that might exist in the wake of a stony meteor at a velocity of 72 km x s(-1) are given. Using a large-scale spectral synthesis code called Cloudy, UV radiation within the 240-400 nm band of the wake of such a meteor is simulated, and relative intensities of several expected strong emission lines are predicted. Comparison shows that our prediction of the spectrum of a meteor wake, which has an effective temperature of 5 680 K and a fractional vapor pressure of 0.1 Pa, is fairly close to the observational results.
State Key Laboratory of Applied Optics, Changchun Institute of Optics, Fine Mechanics and Physics, Changchun 130033, China.
Da-wei
DW
Zhang
Bo
B
Chen