Meteor and ionospheric Irregularity Observation System

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What's MIOS?

Meteoroids entering the Earth's atmosphere significantly disturb the background ionosphere, producing ionized columns and plasma density irregularities, change the ionospheric composition, and even seed large-scale ionospheric irregularity structures. However, due to the limitations of previous measurements, some physical processes, for example, how efficiently various meteoroids affect the background ionosphere, either producing or not producing some specific meteor trail irregularity phenomena, and the related meteoroid properties and origins, are less well understood. Under the support of national natural science foundation of China, a Meteor and ionospheric Irregularity Observation System (MIOS) was designed to simultaneously capture the radar and optical signatures of meteors and plasma density irregularities. MIOS consists of multistation optical subsystem at Ledong (18.4°N, 109°E) and Sanya (18.3°N, 109.6°E), and radar subsystem including a 38.9 MHz all-sky interferometric radar and a 47.5 MHz coherent phased array radar at Ledong, has been in full operational since December 2021. It is expected that the MIOS will provide an important tool to study the generation and evolution of various meteor trail irregularities and the properties of the corresponding meteoroids.

Bright meteor events

MIOS activities