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The study of meteoroids and meteorites is a field that inspires great interest in
different research communities. The prediction of the trajectory of large meteoroids and of the fragment swarm, created after impact with the atmosphere, is dedicated to estimating the damage produced in a collision with the Earth’s surface. Moreover, meteorites can provide information on their extraterrestrial origins, disclosing to astrophysicists information on the formation of the solar system. These two aspects have been developed separately: while hypersonic physics privileges the fluid dynamics of atmospheric entry, with more or less sophisticated chemical models, the second aspect focuses on the experimental characterization of fragments as well as on the optical tracking of meteors made visible by the ablation process.
Considerations on meteoroid entry physics
Meteoroid and meteorite science
The trajectory, structure and origin of the Chelyabinsk impactor
Properties of meteoroids from forward scatter radio observations
The flux of meteoroids over time: meteor emission spectroscopy and the delivery of volatiles and chondritic materials to Earth
Compositional, mineralogical and structural investigation of meteorites by XRD and LIBS
Hypersonic entry physics
Radiation gas dynamics of centimeter meteoric bodies at an altitude of 80 km
Super-orbital entry of artificial asteroids (Apollo, Hayabusa) and CFD/radiation/thermal analysis of the entry of the Chelyabinsk meteorite
High-enthalpy ionized flows
Precursor ionization during high-speed Earth entry
Response of the meteoroid/meteorite to aerodynamic forces and ablation
Experimental investigation of meteorites: ground test facilities
Advanced state-to-state and multi-temperature models for flow regimes
State-to-state kinetics in CFD simulation of hypersonic flows using GPUs
Elementary processes in hypersonic flows
Thermodynamic and transport properties of reacting air including ablated species
Electron–molecule processes
Heavy-particle elementary processes in hypersonic flows
Non-empirical analytical model of non-equilibrium dissociation in high-temperature air
The role of vibrational activation and bimolecular reactions in non-equilibrium plasma kinetics