The Influx Rate of Meteors in the Earth's Atmosphere.

Abstract

Photographic observations obtained with Super-Schmidt cameras are used to determine the rate of incidence of meteoric particles on the earth's upper atmosphere The rate is expressed as a function of the photographic and visual magnitude of the meteor, the electron line density of the trail, and the mass of the original meteoroid. It is shown that the number of meteors increases by a factor of 3 4 ± 0.2 per magnitude. The total number of meteors brighter than a visual magnitude of +5 which enter the atmosphere in 24 hours is 90 million.