A very young τ-Herculid meteor cluster observed during a 2022 shower outburst

¹ Astronomical Institute, Czech Academy of Sciences, Fričova 298, 25165 Ondřejov, Czech Republic
² Faculty of Mathematics, Physics and Informatics, Comenius University, Mlynská Dolina, 842 48 Bratislava, Slovakia
³ IMCCE, CNRS, Observatoire de Paris, 77 av. Denfert-Rochereau, Paris, France
⁴ IAESS, University of Southern Queensland, West St., Toowoomba, Australia
⁵ HEFDiG, Institute of Space Systems, University of Stuttgart, Pfaffenwaldring, Stuttgart, Germany

^★ Corresponding author; pavel.koten@asu.cas.cz

Received: 15 January 2025
Accepted: 14 February 2025

Abstract

Context. To date, only a few meteor clusters have been instrumentally recorded. This means that every new detection is an important contribution to the understanding of these phenomena, which are thought to be evidence of the meteoroid fragmentation in the Solar System.

Aims. On May 31 2022 at 6:48:55 UT, a cluster consisting of 52 meteors was detected within 8.5 seconds during a predicted outburst of the τ-Herculid meteor shower. The aim of this paper is to reconstruct the atmospheric trajectories of the meteors and use the collected information to deduce the origin of the cluster.

Methods. The meteors were recorded by two video cameras during an airborne campaign. Due to only the single station observation, their trajectories were estimated under the assumption that they belonged to the meteor shower. The mutual positions of the fragments, together with their photometric masses, were used to model the processes leading to the formation of the cluster.

Results. The physical properties of the cluster meteors are very similar to the properties of the τ-Herculids. This finding confirms the assumption of the shower membership used for the computation of atmospheric trajectories. This is the third cluster that we have studied in detail, but the first one in which we do not see the mass separation of the particles. The cluster is probably less than 2.5 days old, which is too short for such a complete mass separation. Such an age would imply disintegration due to thermal stress. However, we cannot rule out an age of only a few hours, which would allow for other fragmentation mechanisms.