| Abstract : | Understanding the latitudinal and altitudinal variation of meteor flux is essential for better
estimate of annual sporadic meteor mass flux into the earth's atmosphere. The present study
focus on the distribution of sporadic meteor flux at different altitudes of radars located at
different latitudes, and to understand the mechanism responsible for such distribution. This study
is based on archival data collected from six identical all-sky SKiYMET meteor radars located at
different geographical latitudes, two of them are at equatorial region, Kototabang (KTB: 0.2^o S,
100.3^o E) and Biak (BIK: 1.2^o S, 136.1^o E), two are located at northern hemisphere, Bear Lake
observatory (BLO:41.9^o N, 111.4^o W) and Esrange (ESR: 67.9^o N, 21.1^o W) and the remaining two
are at southern hemisphere, King Edward Point (KEP: 54.3^o S, 36.5^o E) and Rothera (ROT: 67.5^o S,
68.0^o W). The study reveals that there is a strong latitudinal as well as altitudinal asymmetry in
meteor flux occurrence rate, which is a result of observing geometry of major sporadic meteor
sources at a given latitude. An interesting result is occurrence of diurnal primary peak at different
altitudes, particularly at north hemisphere, however, no such peak observed at south hemisphere.
We also found a clear seasonal variability in occurrence of secondary peak. |
