Observational evidence of high-altitude meteor trail from radar interferometer

Using observations from the Sanya VHF coherent radar interferometer during 11 July to 10 August 2013, we have found a new class of range-spread high-altitude meteor trail echoes (HAMEs), some of which appeared at ~170 km altitude lasting more than 10 s. A statistical analysis on the local time dependence of the identified HAME events shows a maximum around 00-04 LT.

The results imply that there could be much more meteor mass input due to meteoroid sputtering at high altitudes in the Earth's atmosphere than previously thought.