ON THE FREQUENCY OF INTERSTELLAR METEOROIDS

Analysis of 2910 photographic meteor orbits collected in the IAU Meteo r Data Center in Lund from different catalogues shows that the vasting majority of the 347 hyperbolic orbits with e > 1 and a < 0 are subjec t to erroneous determination of their heliocentric velocity or other p arameters, and approximately 50 percent of them belong to the known me teor showers. The analysis of meteors from the most precise Harvard ca talogues and their comparison with the other data, separately for the extreme values of the excess of hyperbolic velocities sets the frequen cy limit for hyperbolic meteors, with the excess corresponding to the possible interstellar meteors, to 2 x 10(-3). The average velocity exc ess of hyperbolic meteors is one order lower than expected for interst ellar meteors, moreover neither any concentration of radiants to the S un's apex, nor any distribution following the motion of interstellar m aterial has been found.