METEOR PHENOMENA AND BODIES

Meteoroids can be observed at collision with the Earth's atmosphere as meteors. Different methods of observing meteors are presented: beside s the traditional counts of individual events, exact methods yield als o data on the geometry of the atmospheric trajectory; on the dynamics and ablation of the body in the atmosphere; on radiation; on the spect ral distribution of radiation; on ionization; on accompanying sounds; and also data on orbits. Theoretical models of meteoroid interaction w ith the atmosphere are given and applied to observational data. Attent ion is paid to radar observations; to spectroscopic observations; to e xperiments with artificial meteors and to different types of meteor so unds. The proposed composition and structure of meteoroids as well as their orbits link them to meteorites, asteroids and comets. Meteor str eams can be observed as meteor showers and storms. The rate of influx of meteoroids of different sizes onto Earth is presented and potential hazards discussed.