Abstract
On 2008 October 7, small asteroid \(2008~\mbox{TC}_{3}\) turned itself into the parent body of the first meteor ever to be predicted before entering the Earth’s atmosphere. Over five years later, the 2014 AA event became the second instance of such an occurrence. The uncertainties associated with the pre-impact orbit of \(2008~\mbox{TC}_{3}\) are relatively small because thousands of observations were made during the hours preceding the actual meteor airburst. In sharp contrast, 2014 AA was only observed seven times before impact and consequently its trajectory is somewhat uncertain. Here, we present a recalculation of the impact parameters—location and timing—of this meteor based on infrasound recordings. The new values—\((\lambda_{\mathrm{impact}}, \phi_{\mathrm{impact}}, t_{\mathrm{impact}}) = (-44^{\circ }, +11^{\circ }, 2456659.618~\mbox{JD UTC})\)—and their uncertainties together with Monte Carlo and \(N\)-body techniques, are applied to obtain an independent determination of the pre-impact orbit of 2014 AA: \(a=1.1623~\mbox{AU}\), \(e=0.2116\), \(i=1.\hspace {-0.3em}^{\circ}4156\), \(\varOmega =101 .\hspace {-0.3em}^{\circ}6086\), and \(\omega=52.\hspace {-0.3em}^{\circ}3393\). Our orbital solution is used to investigate the possible presence of known near-Earth objects (NEOs) moving in similar orbits. Among the objects singled out by this search, the largest is \(2013~\mbox{HO}_{11}\) with an absolute magnitude of 23.0 (diameter 75–169 m) and a MOID of 0.006 AU. Prior to impact, 2014 AA was subjected to a web of overlapping secular resonances and it followed a path similar to those of \(2011~\mbox{GJ}_{3}\), \(2011~\mbox{JV}_{10}\), \(2012~\mbox{DJ}_{54}\), and \(2013~\mbox{NJ}_{4}\). NEOs in this transient group have their orbits controlled by close encounters with the Earth–Moon system at perihelion and Mars at aphelion, perhaps constituting a dynamical family. Extensive comparison with other studies is also presented.
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Notes
The orbit available from the Minor Planet Center is: \(a = 1.1605495~\mbox{AU}\), \(e = 0.2092087\), \(i = 1.\hspace {-0.3em}^{\circ}39894\), \(\varOmega = 101.\hspace {-0.3em}^{\circ}70409\), and \(\omega = 52.\hspace {-0.3em}^{\circ}02425\), referred to the epoch 2456600.5 JD TDB.
The orbit available from NEODyS-2 is: \(a = 1.17\pm0.03~\mbox{AU}\), \(e = 0.22\pm0.03\), \(i = 1.\hspace {-0.3em}^{\circ}4\pm0.\hspace {-0.3em}^{\circ}2\), \(\varOmega = 101.\hspace {-0.3em}^{\circ}57\pm0.\hspace {-0.3em}^{\circ}12\), and \(\omega = 52^{\circ }\pm1^{\circ }\), referred to the epoch 2456658.3 JD TDB.
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Acknowledgements
The authors thank the referee, T.J. Jopek, for his constructive, detailed and very helpful reports, S.J. Aarseth for providing one of the codes used in this research and for comments on early versions of this work, S. R. Chesley for providing his results on the pre-impact orbit of 2014 AA prior to publication, D. Farnocchia for his input on early versions of this work, J.D. Giorgini for providing the details of the orbit computed by the JPL, Bill Gray for sharing the early results of his impact calculations, and S.R. Proud for sharing the results of his analysis of some weather satellite imagery. This work was partially supported by the Spanish ‘Comunidad de Madrid’ under grant CAM S2009/ESP-1496. Some of the calculations discussed in this paper were completed on the ‘Servidor Central de Cálculo’ of the Universidad Complutense de Madrid. This research has made use of NASA’s Astrophysics Data System, the ASTRO-PH e-print server, the MPC data server, and the NEODyS information service.
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Appendices
Appendix A: Orbital elements of the Earth around the time of impact
Chesley et al. (2015) have released the impact time and the hypocentre location for the 2014 AA impact (see their Table 1) as included in the REB of the IDC of the CTBTO for 2014 January 2. The impact time was 2014 January 2 at 3:05:25 UTC with an uncertainty of 632 s. The impact location coordinates were latitude (\({^{\circ }}\mbox{N}\)) equal to \(+14.\hspace {-0.3em}^{\circ}6326\) and longitude (\({^{\circ }}\mbox{E}\)) of \(-43.\hspace {-0.3em}^{\circ}4194\). Therefore, the actual impact with the atmosphere took place at epoch 2456659.629537 Julian Date, Barycentric Dynamical Time. The uncertainty is about 10 minutes. The osculating orbital elements of the Earth within \(\pm150~\mbox{s}\) of the detection are given in Table 10. These values have been computed by the SSDG, Horizons On-Line Ephemeris System.
Appendix B: Cartesian state vectors at epoch JD TDB 2456658.628472222 = A.D. 2014-Jan-1 03:05:00.0000 TDB
In order to facilitate verification of our results by other astrodynamicists, we show in Table 11 the Cartesian state vectors of the physical model used in all the calculations presented here. These values have been computed by the SSDG, Horizons On-Line Ephemeris System at epoch JD TDB 2456658.628472222 = A.D. 2014-Jan-01 03:05:00.0000 TDB, this instant is considered as \(t = 0\) across this work unless explicitly stated. Positions and velocities are referred to the barycentre of the Solar System.
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de la Fuente Marcos, C., de la Fuente Marcos, R. & Mialle, P. Homing in for New Year: impact parameters and pre-impact orbital evolution of meteoroid 2014 AA. Astrophys Space Sci 361, 358 (2016). https://doi.org/10.1007/s10509-016-2945-3
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DOI: https://doi.org/10.1007/s10509-016-2945-3
Keywords
- Celestial mechanics
- Minor planets, asteroids: individual: 2014 AA
- Minor planets, asteroids: individual: \(2011~\mbox{GJ}_{3}\)
- Minor planets, asteroids: individual: \(2011~\mbox{JV}_{10}\)
- Minor planets, asteroids: individual: \(2012~\mbox{DJ}_{54}\)
- Minor planets, asteroids: individual: \(2013~\mbox{NJ}_{4}\)
- Planets and satellites: individual: Earth