NELIOTA: First Temperature Measurement of Lunar Impact Flashes

A.Z. Bonanos, C. Avdellidou, A. Liakos, E.M. Xilouris, A. Dapergolas, D. Koschny, I. Bellas-Velidis, P. Boumis, V. Charmandaris, A. Fytsilis, A. Maroussis
(Submitted on 24 Oct 2017)

We report the first scientific results from the NELIOTA (NEO Lunar Impacts and Optical TrAnsients) project, which has recently begun lunar monitoring observations with the 1.2-m Kryoneri telescope. NELIOTA aims to detect faint impact flashes produced by near-Earth meteoroids and asteroids and thereby help constrain the size-frequency distribution of near-Earth objects in the decimeter to meter range. The NELIOTA setup, consisting of two fast-frame cameras observing simultaneously in the R and I−bands, enables – for the first time – direct analytical calculation of the flash temperatures. We present the first 10 flashes detected, for which we find temperatures in the range ~1,600-3,100 K, in agreement with theoretical values. Two of these flashes were detected on multiple frames in both filters and therefore yield the first measurements of the temperature drop for lunar flashes. In addition, we compute the impactor masses, which range between a few hundreds of grams and ~100 kg.

Comments:    6 pages, 1 figure, 1 table, submitted to A&A
Subjects:    Earth and Planetary Astrophysics (astro-ph.EP)
Cite as:    arXiv:1710.08915 [astro-ph.EP](or arXiv:1710.08915v1 [astro-ph.EP] for this version)
Submission history
From: Alceste Bonanos
[v1] Tue, 24 Oct 2017 17:59:34 GMT (92kb)
https://arxiv.org/abs/1710.08915