Meteor clusters: tracing meteoroid fragmentation in near-Earth space

Abstract

Meteor clusters are typically defined as groups of meteors that appear close together in both space and time. To date, only a handful of such events have been recorded instrumentally and analysed in detail. In many documented cases, thermal stress has been identified as the most likely cause of meteoroid fragmentation near Earth. This paper documents two further cases and provides a summary of all currently known clusters. The two clusters that were recorded over Hawaii Island in 2023 and 2024 represent two distinct scenarios. The 2024 meteor cluster was characterised by a dominant mass body and, with the fragments arranged along the antisolar direction according to their mass. Such cases enable us to reliably determine the age of the cluster and identify the most likely formation scenario. This cluster was around three days old, and the thermal stress was the most likely mechanism of its formation. The 2023 cluster was not such a case. It does not contain a mass dominant body, nor are its fragments arranged by their mass. Therefore, it was only possible to estimate its age to be no more than four days. Furthermore, other potential formation mechanisms besides thermal stress cannot be ruled out. This fact was observed in all analysed clusters. All clusters known up to date were formed in close proximity to Earth. The volume of a cluster increases with its age. This means that older clusters, formed by the fragmentation far away from Earth may remain undetected, as their fragments are also dispersed too widely to be observed by local experiment. However, global networks can detect such dispersed clusters.