Meteor observations as a tool to constrain cosmogonic models of the Solar System

TL;DR

This study explores how meteor observations can help differentiate cosmogonic models of the Solar System by analyzing rocky meteoroids on Oort cloud cometary orbits to estimate the icy-to-rocky ratio.

Contribution

It introduces a methodology to use meteor database data for constraining the population of rocky objects in the Oort cloud, aiding model differentiation.

Findings

Identification of rocky meteoroids on Oort cloud cometary orbits

Estimation of meteor fluxes to constrain Oort cloud composition

Methodology for using meteor data to test cosmogonic models

Abstract

Recent observations of small bodies of the Solar System showed evidence of the presence of refractory (asteroidal) material in the Oort cloud. Different models of the origin of the Solar System predict different numbers of rocky objects in the Oort cloud, meaning that measurement of this population can be used as an observational constraint for cosmogonic models. The aim of our work is to study how the data obtained from meteor observations can be used as a tool for distinguishing among the existing cosmogonic models. We investigated two meteor databases collected by the cameras of the All-Sky Meteor Orbit System (AMOS) located in the Canary Islands and in Chile. We describe methodology and results of the search for unusually strong rocky meteoroids on cometary orbits with the origin in the Oort cloud. These data will be used to calculate the fluxes of meteors of different compositions in order to constrain the ratio of icy and rocky components of the Oort cloud. For the flux determination, we estimate the observational time and effective area of the AMOS system.