RT Journal Article
T1 The 2011 October Draconids outburst – I. Orbital elements, meteoroid fluxes and 21P/Giacobini–Zinner delivered mass to Earth
A1 Trigo Rodríguez, Josep María
A1 Madiedo Gil, José María
A1 Williams, I. P.
A1 Dergham, J.
A1 Cortés, J.
A1 Castro Tirado, Alberto J.
A1 Ortiz Moreno, José Luis
A1 Zamorano, J.
A1 Ocaña Gónzalez, Francisco
A1 Izquierdo Gómez, Jaime
A1 Sánchez de Miguel, A.
A1 Alonso Azcárate, Jacinto
A1 Rodríguez, Diego
A1 Tapia, Mar
A1 Pujols, P.
A1 Lacruz, J.
A1 Pruneda, Francesc
A1 Oliva, Armand
A1 Pastor Erades, Juan
A1 Marín, Antonio Francisco
AB On 2011 October 8, the Earth crossed the dust trails left by comet 21P/Giacobini–Zinner during its 19th and 20th century perihelion approaches with the comet being close to perihelion. The geometric circumstances of that encounter were thus favourable to produce a meteor storm, but the trails were much older than in the 1933 and 1946 historical encounters. As a consequence the 2011 October Draconid display exhibited several activity peaks with Zenithal Hourly Rates of about 400 meteors h−1. In fact, if the display had not been forecasted, it could have passed almost unnoticed as was strongly attenuated for visual observers due to the Moon. This suggests that most meteor storms of a similar nature could have passed historically unnoticed under unfavourable weather and Moon observing conditions. The possibility of obtaining information on the physical properties of cometary meteoroids penetrating the atmosphere under low geocentric velocity encounter circumstances motivated us to set up a special observing campaign. Added to the Spanish Fireball Network wide-field all-sky and CCD video monitoring, other high-sensitivity 1/2 arcsec black and white CCD video cameras were attached to the modified medium-field lenses for obtaining high-resolution orbital information. The trajectory, radiant and orbital data of October 16 Draconid meteors observed at multiple stations are presented. The results show that the meteors appeared from a geocentric radiant located at α = 263.0 ± 0∘.4 and δ = +55.3 ± 0∘.3 that is in close agreement with the radiant predicted for the 1873–1894 and the 1900 dust trails. The estimated mass of material from 21P/Giacobini–Zinner delivered to Earth during the 6 h outburst was around 950 ± 150 kg.
PB Oxford University Press
SN 0035-8711
SN 1365-2966 (electrónico)
YR 2013
FD 2013
LK http://hdl.handle.net/10272/9395
UL http://hdl.handle.net/10272/9395
LA eng
NO Trigo Rodríguez, J.M., Madiedo Gil, J.M., Williams, I.P., Dergham, J., Cortés, J., Castro Tirado, A.J., Ortiz Moreno, J.L., Zamorano, J., Ocaña Gónzalez, F., Izquierdo Gómez, J., Sánchez de Miguel, A., Alonso Azcárate, J., Rodríguez, D., Tapia, M., Pujols, P., Lacruz, J., Pruneda, F., Oliva, A., Pastor Erades, J., Marín, A.F.: "The 2011 October Draconids outburst – I. Orbital elements, meteoroid fluxes and 21P/Giacobini–Zinner delivered mass to Earth". Monthly Notices of the Royal Astronomical Society. Vol. 433, págs. 560-570, (2013). ISSN 0035-8711
NO We are particularly grateful to all amateur observers that contributed to this study. We acknowledge support from the Spanish Ministry of Science and Innovation (projects AYA2009-13227, AYA2009-14000-C03-01 and AYA2011-26522), Junta de Andalucia (project P09-FQM-4555) and CSIC (grant #201050I043). We also thank the Draconid Recerca en Accio project (granted by Generalitat de Catalunya) in order to promote a cooperative amateur campaign in Catalonia. We also thank Dr Margaret Campell-Brown for many useful suggestions for improving this paper.
DS Repositorio Institucional de la Universidad de Huelva
RD 30 may 2026