Hydrogen emission from meteors and meteorites: mapping traces of H$_{2}$O molecules and organic compounds in small Solar system bodies

TL;DR

This study investigates hydrogen emission in meteors, revealing its correlation with cometary origin, composition, and volatile content, and proposing H$ ext{α}$ as a tracer for water and organics in small Solar system bodies.

Contribution

It provides the first large dataset analysis linking H$ ext{α}$ emission to meteoroid origin, composition, and volatile content, highlighting its potential as a tracer for water and organics.

Findings

H$ ext{α}$ emission is prevalent in fast, cometary meteoroids.

H$ ext{α}$ emission correlates with water and organic content in meteoroids.

H$ ext{α}$ can distinguish between different meteoroid types based on composition.

Abstract

The hydrogen emission from meteors is assumed to originate mainly from the meteoroid composition, making it a potential tracer of H$_{2}$O molecules and organic compounds. H$\alpha$ line was previously detected in individual fireballs, but its variation in a larger meteor dataset and dependency on the dynamical origin and physical properties have not yet been studied. Here we investigate the relative intensity of H$\alpha$ within 304 meteor spectra observed by the AMOS network. We demonstrate that H$\alpha$ emission is favored in faster meteors ($v_i >>$ 30 km s$^{-1}$) which form the high-temperature spectral component. H$\alpha$ was found to be a characteristic spectral feature of cometary meteoroids with $\sim$ 92% of all meteoroids with detected H$\alpha$ originating from Halley-type and long-period orbits. Our results suggest that hydrogen is being depleted from meteoroids with lower perihelion distances (q $<$ 0.4 au). No asteroidal meteoroids with detected H emission were found. However, using spectral data from simulated ablation of different meteorite types, we show that H emission from asteroidal materials can occur, and apparently correlates with their water and organic matter content. Strongest H emission was detected from carbonaceous chondrites (CM and CV) and achondrites (ureilite and aubrite), while it was lacking in most ordinary chondrites. The detection of H$\alpha$ in asteroidal meteoroids could be used to identify meteoroids of carbonaceous or achondritic composition. Overall, our results suggest that H$\alpha$ emission correlates with the emission of other volatiles (Na and CN) and presents a suitable tracer of water and organic matter in meteoroids.