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Meteor astronomer Dr. Peter Jenniskens (b. 1962) is a senior research scientist at the Carl Sagan Center of the SETI Institute and at NASA Ames Research Center ^[1]. His full name is Petrus Matheus Marie Jenniskens. He is an expert on meteor showers. Jenniskens is the author of of the 790 page "Meteor Showers and their Parent Comets" published by Cambridge University Press in 2006 ^[2]. Jenniskens is chair of the Task Group on Meteor Shower Nomenclature of Commission 22 of the International Astronomical Union (2006-2009) ^[3]. Discovered at Ondrejov Observatory by Peter Plavec, asteroid "42981 Jenniskens" is named in his honor. Image File history File links Wikitext. ... The SETI Institute is a private, nonprofit organization dedicated to scientific research, education and public outreach to explore, understand, and explain the nature and origin of the Universe. ... Categories: Planetology | Astronomy stubs ... The headquarters of the Cambridge University Press, in Trumpington Street, Cambridge. ... IAU redirects here. ... For other uses, see Asteroid (disambiguation). ...

NASA Multi-Instrument Aircraft Campaigns

Meteor showers

Jenniskens is the principal investigator of NASA's Leonid Multi-Instrument Aircraft Campaign (Leonid MAC), a series of four airborne missions that fielded modern instrumental techniques to study the 1998 - 2002 Leonids meteor storms ^[4]. These missions helped develop meteor storm prediction models, detected the signature of organic matter in the wake of meteors as a potential precursor to origin-of-life chemistry, and discovered many new aspects of meteor radiation. The most famous depiction of the 1833 meteor storm actually produced in 1889 for the Adventist book Bible Readings for the Home Circle based on a first-person account of the 1833 storm by a minister, Joseph Harvey Waggoner on his way from Florida to New Orleans. ... Leonid Meteor Shower From earliest times, humankind has noticed flurries of meteors that seemed to emanate from particular points in the sky at particular times of the year. ... This article does not cite any references or sources. ... Worlds second largest Meteorite in Culiacan, Mexico A meteorite is a relatively small extra-terrestrial body that reaches the Earths surface. ...

More recent meteor shower missions include the Aurigid Multi-Instrument Aircraft Campaign (Aurigid MAC), which studied a rare September 1, 2007, outburst of Aurigids meteors from long-period comet C/1911 N1 (Kiess) ^[5].

Spacecraft reentries

His research also includes artificial meteors. Jenniskens is the principal investigator of NASA's Genesis and Stardust Entry Observing Campaigns to study the fiery return from interplanetary space of the Genesis (Sep. 2004) and Stardust (Jan. 2006) sample return capsules ^[6]. These airborne missions studied what are artificial meteors to understand what physical conditions the protective heat shield endured during the reentry before being recovered. For other uses, see Genesis (disambiguation). ... Stardust may refer to several concepts: In space and aviation: another name for cosmic dust Stardust (spacecraft), a comet coma sample return spacecraft Star Dust (aeroplane), a British airliner that vanished in 1947 In music: Stardust (song), a 1927 jazz-pop song by Hoagy Carmichael Stardust (album), a record album...

An overview of ongoing missions can be found at: [7].

Other research

Jenniskens identified the Quadrantids parent body 2003 EH1, and several others, as new examples of how fragmenting comets are the dominant source of meteor showers ^[7]. Before that, he predicted and observed the 1995 Alpha Monocerotids meteor outburst (with members of the Dutch Meteor Society), proving that "stars fell like rain at midnight" because the dust trails of long-period comets wander on occasion in Earth's path. In earlier collaborations, he discovered that an unusual viscous form of liguid water can be a common form of water in comets and icy satellites (with David F. Blake) and he created the first broad detection-limited survey of Diffuse Interstellar Bands (with Xavier Désert). The Quadrantids are a meteor shower. ... Categories: Planetology | Astronomy stubs ... Comet Hale-Bopp, showing a white dust tail and blue gas tail (February 1997) A comet is a small astronomical object similar to an asteroid but composed largely of ice. ... Impact from a water drop causes an upward rebound jet surrounded by circular capillary waves. ... Comet Hale-Bopp, showing a white dust tail and blue gas tail (February 1997) A comet is a small astronomical object similar to an asteroid but composed largely of ice. ... Relative strengths of observed diffuse interstellar bands Diffuse interstellar bands (DIBs) are absorption features seen in the spectra of astronomical objects in our galaxy. ...

References