Identifying misclassified meteor showers in the IAU MDC database

Reclassification proposal

¹ Astronomical Observatory Institute, Faculty of Physics and Astronomy, A.M. University, Poznań, Poland
² Astronomical Institute, Slovak Academy of Sciences, Tatranska Lomnica, Slovakia
³ Astronomical Institute, Slovak Academy of Sciences, Bratislava, Slovakia
⁴ Starion Group, Leiden, The Netherlands
⁵ ESA ESTEC, Noordwijk, The Netherlands

^★ Corresponding author.

Received: 19 March 2025
Accepted: 16 May 2025

Abstract

Context. The study of meteoroid streams reveals the full complexity of these structures. At present, there is no objective method of deciding whether the parameters of an observed stream represent a further solution to an already known object or whether they relate to a new discovery. As a result, the Meteor Data Center (MDC) database of the International Astronomical Union (IAU) contains duplicates and false duplicates of meteor showers.

Aims. It is desirable to detect questionable cases and correct their status in the IAU MDC database, thereby contributing to the improvement of its content. Having the correct content in the database is important for its applications, such as when assessing the threat from meteoroids to Earth’s artificial satellites.

Methods. In this work, we used two approaches to address the shortcomings in the shower data. In the first, the internal compatibility of geocentric and heliocentric parameters representing a given stream was verified. In the second, a comparison of two or more solutions of the same shower was made in as much detail as possible. We verified 56 streams identified in our earlier work as suspected cases of misclassification.

Results. For 43 streams, misclassification was confirmed, and we provide a proposal to change their status in the MDC to autonomous. In the remaining 13 cases, we propose to leave their status unchanged.

Conclusions. Although we do not consider it ‘definitive’, our study clearly shows that repeated misclassification of new meteor shower solutions has occurred in the past. Correction of these cases will significantly improve the content of the MDC database. As an additional product, based on the approach proposed in this and our earlier work, relevant procedures have been proposed. They are available on the MDC database website and will make it possible to compare new meteoroid data with the contents of the database, thereby avoiding errors in their classification.