Title: Enhanced activity of the Southern Taurids in 2005 and 2015,
Abstract: The paper presents an analysis of Polish Fireball Network (PFN) observations
of enhanced activity of the Southern Taurid meteor shower in 2005 and 2015. In
2005, between October 20 and November 10, seven stations of PFN determined 107
accurate orbits with 37 of them belonging to the Southern Taurid shower. In the
same period of 2015, 25 stations of PFN recorded 719 accurate orbits with 215
orbits of the Southern Taurids. Both maxima were rich in fireballs which
accounted to 17% of all observed Taurids. The whole sample of Taurid fireballs
is quite uniform in the sense of starting and terminal heights of the
trajectory. On the other hand a clear decreasing trend in geocentric velocity
with increasing solar longitude was observed.
Orbital parameters of observed Southern Taurids were compared to orbital
elements of Near Earth Objects (NEO) from the NEODYS-2 database. Using the
Drummond criterion $D'$ with threshold as low as 0.06, we found over 100
fireballs strikingly similar to the orbit of asteroid 2015 TX24. Several dozens
of Southern Taurids have orbits similar to three other asteroids, namely: 2005
TF50, 2005 UR and 2010 TU149. All mentioned NEOs have orbital periods very
close to the 7:2 resonance with Jupiter's orbit. It confirms a theory of a
"resonant meteoroid swarm" within the Taurid complex that predicts that in
specific years, the Earth is hit by a greater number of meteoroids capable of
producing fireballs.