Phoenicid meteor shower

Abstract

The outburst of the Phoenicids observed in 1956 was investigated on the basis of the dust trail theory by using the newly linked orbit that was estimated from the asteroid 2003 WY25 and comet D/1819 W1(Blanpain). We find that a bundle of the trails formed from late 18th through early 19th centuries came close to the Earth's orbit at the epoch of the outburst in 1956. We introduce this as a brand new approach to explore the past history of cometary activities of dormant objects by inspecting the activity of related meteor showers, with a help of the dust trail theory.