Is there a seasonal variation in the observed influx of small comets?
Three sets of data for the period November through January point to a very pronounced seasonal variation. Recent data from the Polar spacecraft show that the influx of small comets into the Earth’s atmosphere is 10 times greater in early November than in mid-January, when the small comet rate diminishes dramatically. This is the same seasonal variation discovered in the 1980s in images from a different camera aboard a different spacecraft, Dynamics Explorer-1, which traveled a different orbit than the Polar spacecraft. The oldest data set showing the influx of small comets into the Earth’s atmosphere dates back to 1955. Using forward scatter radar, two Canadian scientists, E. L. Vogan and L. L. Campbell, found exactly the same seasonal variation, a November high and January low, in their non-shower, or sporadic, radar meteor rate. Why the atmospheric hole rate should correlate so well with the meteor rate measured by forward scatter radar is no mystery. After all, small comets are just
