Luminous efficiency in hypervelocity impacts from the 1999 lunar Leonids http://iopscience.iop.org/article/10.1086/312914/pdf

L. R. Bellot Rubio, J. L. Ortiz, P. V. Sada

Research output: Contribution to journalArticlepeer-review

4 Citations (Scopus)

Abstract

An analysis of the optical flashes produced by Leonid meteoroids impacting the Moon in 1999 November is carried out in order to estimate the fraction of kinetic energy converted into radiation, the so-called luminous efficiency η. It is shown that the observational data are consistent with luminous efficiencies of 2×10 -3 in the wavelength range of 400-900 nm with an uncertainty of about 1 order of magnitude. This experimental value of η is significantly larger than previous estimates for meteoroids of asteroidal composition based on numerical calculations and scaling laws from laboratory collisions. According to our results, the luminous efficiency might vary with mass, i.e., the smaller impactors converting less kinetic energy into light and vice versa. A comparison with recent numerical simulations for meteoroids of cometary composition is also carried out.

Original languageEnglish
Pages (from-to)L65-L68
JournalAstrophysical Journal Letters
Volume542
Issue number1
DOIs
Publication statusPublished - 10 Oct 2000

Bibliographical note

Publisher Copyright:
© 2000. The American Astronomical Society. All rights reserved. Printed in U.S.A.

Copyright:
Copyright 2017 Elsevier B.V., All rights reserved.

All Science Journal Classification (ASJC) codes

  • Astronomy and Astrophysics
  • Space and Planetary Science

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