Meteor pairs and groups in Geminid meteor shower

The existence of the pairs and larger groups of the meteors was already investigated in several papers. Recent statistical analyses of radar or optical data on several meteor showers provided rather negative results. Nevertheless, some level of groupings is possible, especially among young streams.

When digitalizing older videotapes obtained during the 2006 Geminid campaign, we found a relatively higher number of meteors that appear in pairs. Therefore we investigated this observational result in more detail.

Statistically, when observing Geminid meteor shower, we could expect 1.4 randomly paired meteors per 1 hour assuming ZHR = 100 and the maximum gap between meteors of 1 second. There were recorded 9 pairs during 3.5 hours of observation. Therefore at least some of them cannot be statistically random pairs. Moreover, a triplet of meteors detected within 1 second is well above the statistical threshold for random appearance.

In this talk, we will provide more detailed analyses of all the cases as well as some possible scenarios of their origin.