September epsilon Perseid cluster – collisional origin?

A bright fireball together with eight fainter meteors on parallel atmospheric trajectories was observed within 2 seconds by Koten et al. (2017). We will present a detailed analysis of this case focused on the collisional origin of the cluster.

We first estimate the age of the cluster and ejection velocities assuming influence of solar radiation pressure and taking into account observational uncertainties. Next we consider that the parent meteoroid producing the observed fireball collided with a micrometeoroid and that the eight observed meteors correspond to the largest fragments of the ejected material. We estimate the total ejected mass, distribution of mass and velocity of the impactor, and the probability of such an impact. Finally we discuss how reliable the explanation by the collision is.