[hal-01078183] Meteor hurricane at Mars on 2014 October 19 from comet C/2013 A1

Comet C/2013 A1 will make a very close approach with the planet Mars on 2014 October 19 For this event we compute the density of cometary dust particles around the Mars Express spacecraft in order to assess the real risk for space probes We also estimate the zenithal hourly rate ZHR and discuss observational opportunities for the resulting Martian meteor shower We find for a surface of 27 m 2 that the Mars Express spacecraft will experience approximately 10 impacts from particles larger than 100 µm in size The fluence per square metre is found to be 35 during the encounter The equivalent ZHR is computed to be ZHR 475 × 10 9 h −1 making this event the strongest meteor storm ever predicted We call this event a 'meteor hurricane' which we define to be a meteor shower with ZHR exceeding 10 6 h −1



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