Meteor Showers and Their Parent Comets

Unique handbook for amateur and professional astronomers explains the causes of meteor showers on Earth.

Part I. Introduction: 1. How meteor showers were linked to comets; 2. What is at the core of comets?; 3. The formation of meteoroid streams; 4. Meteors from meteoroid impacts in Earth; 5. Comet and meteoroid orbits in space and time; Part II. Parent Bodies: 6. Long period comets; 7. Halley-type comets; 8. Jupiter-family comets; 9. Fading comets of the inner solar system; 10. Asteroids; Part III. Young Streams from Whipple-type Ejection: 11. What planets do to dust trails; 12. Meteor storm chasing; 13. Meteor outbursts from long-period comets; 14. Trapped: the Leonid Filament; 15. The Leonid storms; 16. The Ursids; 17. The Perseids; 18. Other Halley-type comets; 19. Dust trails of Jupiter-family comets; Part IV. Young Streams from Comet Fragmentation: 20. Broken comets; 21. Quadrantids; 22. Geminids; 23. The sunskirting streams: Arietids and delta-Aquariids; 24. Alpha-Capricornids and kappa-Cygnids; 25. The Taurid complex; Part V. Old Streams and Sporadic Meteoroids: 26. Annual showers; 27. Dispersion from gradually evolving parent body orbits; 28. The ecliptic streams; 29. Toroidal streams; 30. Meteor showers from asteroids; 31. Sporadic meteors and the zodiacal cloud; Part VI. Impact and Relevance of Meteor Showers: 32. Impact!; 33. Meteor showers on other planets; 34. Meteors and the origin of life; Appendices.