Study of physicochemical nature of meteor-shower parent bodies by long-term meteor shower observation on the ISS

2018 Fiscal Year Final Research Report

• Project/Area Number: 15K13604
• Research Category: Grant-in-Aid for Challenging Exploratory Research
• Allocation Type: Multi-year Fund
• Research Field: Geochemistry/Cosmochemistry
• Research Institution: Chiba Institute of Technology
• Principal Investigator: ARAI Tomoko 千葉工業大学, 惑星探査研究センター, 主席研究員 (10413923)
• Project Period (FY): 2015-04-01 – 2019-03-31
• Keywords: 国際宇宙ステーション / 流星観測 / 流星群 / 流星群母天体

Outline of Final Research Achievements

METEOR is two-year meteor observation project onboard the International Space Station (ISS) with a HDTV color camera, with photometric observation for the first year and spectroscopic observation for the second year. The ISS is an ideal platform for meteor observation without weather disturbance. After two launch failures in 2014 and 2015, METEOR instrument was delivered to the ISS in March 26, 2016. Nominal operation started on July 7, 2016. All the observation was complete on March 5, 2019. In total, 30 TB, 3000 hours’ video data were obtained. METEOR instrument was de-installed on March 31, 2019 and returned to the ground on June 4, 2019. An algorism to detect meteors in the recorded video data was successfully developed with machine learning technique in 2018. Data analyses are working in progress to study physical and chemical properties of dust for meteor showers. METEOR data are available at the METEOR project website: http://www.perc.it-chiba.ac.jp/project/meteor/.

Free Research Field

惑星物質科学

Academic Significance and Societal Importance of the Research Achievements

本研究は、天候や大気の影響を受けない高度約400㎞を周回するISSから夜間の動画撮像を行い、偶発的に出現する流星をできるだけ多く観測する世界初の試みである。同一の観測条件で同一の観測装置により、毎年同じ時期に出現する主要流星群の測光および分光観測で得られた、流星群の流星塵のサイズや化学組成のデータに基づき、各流星群やその母天体の実態と成り立ちについて、統計的な議論と理解を可能にする画期的な研究である。本研究で得られた観測データはインターネットを通じて公開されている。 http://www.perc.it-chiba.ac.jp/project/meteor/