PF191012 Myszyniec – highest Orionid meteor ever recorded

¹ Copernicus Astronomical Center, Polish Academy of Sciences, ul. Bartycka 18, 00-716 Warszawa, Poland
e-mail: olech@camk.edu.pl
² Comets and Meteors Workshop, ul. Bartycka 18, 00-716 Warszawa, Poland
³ Central Office of Measures, ul. Elektoralna 2, 00-139 Warsaw, Poland
⁴ Narodowe Centrum Badań Ja̧drowych, Ośrodek Radioizotopów POLATOM, ul. Sołtana 7, 05-400 Otwock, Poland

Received: 18 April 2013
Accepted: 25 June 2013

Abstract

On the night of Oct. 18/19, 2012, at 00:23 UT, a −14.7 mag Orionid fireball occurred over northeastern Poland. The precise orbit and atmospheric trajectory of the event are presented, based on the data collected by five video stations and one photographic Polish Fireball Network station. The beginning height of the meteor is 168.4 ± 0.6 km, which makes the PF191012 Myszyniec fireball the highest ever observed, well-documented meteor not belonging to the Leonid shower. The ablation became the dominant source of light of the meteor at a height of around 115 km. The thermalization of sputtered particles is suggested to be the source of radiation above that value. The transition height of 115 km is 10−15 km below the transition heights derived for Leonids and might suggest that the material of Leonids is more fragile and probably has smaller bulk density than that of Orionids.