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Kelley et al. 2003
Kelley, M.C., Kruschwitz, C., Drummond, J., Gardner, C., Gelinas, L., Hecht, J., Murad, E. and Collins, S. (2003). A new explanation of persistent double meteor trains. Geophysical Research Letters 30: doi: 10.1029/2003GL018312. issn: 0094-8276.

Persistent meteor trains, studied for more than a century, remain somewhat mysterious <Newton, 1869; Trowbridge, 1907; Chapman, 1955; Hapgood, 1980>. The Leonids meteor showers of recent years afforded opportunities to apply new research technologies, including lidars and sophisticated cameras. Here we explore a particularly curious but common feature: double trains. Since the traditional hollow cylinder explanation has been shown to be untenable, we suggest a new explanation, arguing that one train is due to gaseous vapor train emissions behind the meteor while the other is due to heterogeneous chemistry associated with recoagulated dust. In this model the separation is caused by gravitational sedimentation of dust particles, an idea supported by rocket-based observations of recoagulated dust behind a meteor, by rocket-based observations of enhanced sodium emissions in a dust layer, by rocket observations of a dusty trail, and by recent theoretical estimates of chemical reactions on dust.

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Abstract

Keywords
Atmospheric Composition and Structure, Aerosols and particles (0345, 4801), Atmospheric Composition and Structure, General or miscellaneous, Meteorology and Atmospheric Dynamics, Mesospheric dynamics
Journal
Geophysical Research Letters
http://www.agu.org/journals/gl/
Publisher
American Geophysical Union
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