Properties of Large Fragments from Comet 2P/Encke: Spectroscopic Analysis

Introduction: One of the goals of the Southwestern Europe Meteor Network (SWEMN) is the study of the properties of large meteoroids interacting with the Earth's atmosphere. For this purpose we are conducting the SMART project (Spectroscopy of Meteoroids by means of Robotic Technologies), which is being developed since 2006. This survey employs an array of automated spectrographs deployed at 10 meteorobserving stations in Spain [1, 2]. SMART also provides valuable information for our MIDAS project, which we conduct to study lunar impact flashes generated when large meteoroids hit the Moon [3-7]. With SMART we can determine the atmospheric trajectory of meteors and the orbit of their parent meteoroids, but also the evolution of the conditions in meteor plasmas from the emission spectrum produced by these events [8-15]. In particular, it can provide useful data to improve our knowledge about cometary meteoroid streams and the mechanisms that deliver these materials to the Earth. One of these is the Taurid complex, whose parent body is comet 2P/Encke. This is known to have suffered catastrophic disruption processes in the past, as this swarm is known to contain m-sized meteoroids and several NEOs have been identified as part of this complex. The determination of precise orbital parameters of large meteoroids, together with the spectroscopic analysis, can provide new clues on the formation, evolution, and chemical composition of this stream. With this aim, we present here a preliminary analysis of one of the Taurid fireball recorded in 2020 in the framework of SMART.