The Draconid meteoroid stream 2018: prospects for satellite impact detection

TL;DR

This study models the 2018 Draconid meteoroid stream, predicting low impact activity on Earth but potential meteoroid storms at Lagrange points, and assesses Gaia spacecraft's detection prospects.

Contribution

It provides detailed numerical simulations of the 2018 Draconid stream, improving predictions of impact fluxes at Earth and Lagrange points, and evaluates spacecraft detection capabilities.

Findings

Predicted low meteor activity on Earth in 2018

Potential meteoroid storm at L1 and L2 points

Gaia spacecraft could detect small meteoroid impacts

Abstract

Predictions of the 2018 Draconid activity at the Earth and the Sun-Earth L1 and L2 Lagrange points are presented. Numerical simulations of the meteoroids' ejection and evolution from comet 21P/Giacobini-Zinner are performed with a careful implementation of the results analysis and weighting. Model meteoroid fluxes at Earth are derived using as calibration the main peak date, intensity, and shower profiles of previous Draconid outbursts. Good agreement between the model and measurements is found for the 1933, 1946, 1998 and 2011 showers for a meteoroid size distribution index at ejection of about 2.6. A less accurate estimate of the peak time for the 1985, 2005 and 2012 predominantly radio-observed outbursts was found by considering the contribution of individual ejection epochs, while the model peak flux estimate was found to agree with observations to within a factor 3. Despite the promising geometrical configuration in 2018, our simulations predict low Draconid activity is expected on Earth, with a maximum of less than a few tens of meteors per hour around midnight the 9th of October, confirming previous models. At the L1 and L2 Lagrange points, however, the flux estimates suggest a 'meteoroid storm'. The Gaia spacecraft at the L2 region might be able to detect small (~ {\mu}g) Draconid meteoroid impacts centered in a two-hour window around 18h30 UT on the 8th of October, 2018.