Meteor Radar Observations

The Canadian Meteor Orbit Radar (CMOR)

Research Projects

 

  • Measurement of the sporadic background as a means to understand the origin and evolution of the interplanetary meteoroid population and the major sporadic sources
  • Long term program to find, record and characterize radar meteor streams and use this information to better establish probable stream-parent body linkages.
  • Radar measurements of possible Interstellar meteoroids to establish existence of a population of larger interstellar meteoroids impacting Earth and ascertain astrophysical sources (YSOs, debris-disks, AGB stars).
  • Comparison of existing theory for overdense echo diffusion in the upper atmosphere with radar measurements made at multiple frequencies
  • Multi-frequency measurements of meteor trails to constrain the initial cylindrical radius of radar meteors
  • Determination of electron line density profile for meteors using multiple-site reflections to constrain models of ablation of meteoroids
  • Using new six station CMOR II data to estimate deceleration of meteoroids to measure bulk density of meteoroid and correlate with orbit to understand physical structure of different source populations (asteroidal vs. long-period comet vs. KBOs).