USU professor and student capture video and pictures of Meteor shower
Two USU researchers were able to take part in a once-in-a-lifetime trip to study meteors from the comet Kiess.
During Labor Day weekend, physics professor Mike Taylor and senior Dan Burton traveled up to 47,000 feet with a crew of 24 researchers from all over the world.
Crew members on the Aurgirid Multi-Instrument Aircraft Campaign Mission were from Maryland, France, England, Germany and Denmark, some even working for NASA.
Taylor and Burton’s position in the flight was to take video and pictures of the meteors so the researchers could study them.
“With these pictures we can analyze the actual trajectory of the original comet by tracing or just putting all the pictures together and figuring out exactly where the dust is coming from and finding what the meteors are made of,” Burton said.
Taylor said he chose Burton to go with him because Burton has taken photographs for him in Alaska and other places.
Taylor uses the cameras often to study atmospheric waves, but he likes to use them for other research.
“They kind of give us clues as to early makeup of the solar system and help us to kinda theorize and figure out what may have happened to get the solar system how it is today,” Burton said.
Taylor was called by the lead investigator Peter Jeniskens two months before the mission was to be held. The crew has been on several missions together, so when they meet up on short notice, they worked quickly and smoothly, Taylor said.
Kiess only orbits the sun every 2,000 years, when most meteors come every 10 to 50 years.
The orbit of the comet is very long and elliptical unlike most comets. It’s also different because the only kinds of radiation received are x-ray and cosmic radiation.
“They call it a pristine comet because it hasn’t been affected by the sun as much as other comets,” Taylor said.
The last sighting of the comet was in A.D. 30, and the last sighting of the meteors from the comet was in 1911, Burton said.
“It’s a new meteor shower in that respect,” Taylor said.
In previous sightings of Keiss, the comet was blue and green. Normal comets are reds and whites, Taylor said.
“The colors tell us what the comet materials are: sodium, magnesium and various metal elements… So by looking at the colors and making spectral measurements, we can actually from a distance tell what the comet’s dust is made of, what the meteors are made of,” Taylor said.
Taylor has been on several of these “missions” to study how meteors burn up in the atmosphere, but this one was special, he said.
“I’ve done it before, but every time it’s a real thrill,” Taylor said. “It’s so exciting to be able to do these things.”
The researchers saw about 50 to 100 meteors in the sensitive cameras.
“I think we actually saw more meteors than I expected, and that’s even nicer,” Taylor said.
The photos will be studied over the next few months to determine the findings.
-ranae.bang@aggiemail.usu.edu