The mass of meteoroid streams

Meteoroid streams contain the large majority (by mass) of the dust lost by decaying comets and as such provide a clue as to the mass of the parent cometary nuclei. This paper reviews the method used for calculating the mass of a meteoroid stream and presents typical results for some of the major meteoroid streams encountered by Earth. For example the masses of the streams responsible for the Quadrantid, Perseid, Orionid/Eta Aquarid and Geminid meteor showers are found to be $$1.3 \times {10}^{15}, 3.1 \times {10}^{17}, 3.3 \times {10}^{16}\,\text {and}\, 1.6 \times {10}^{16}$$ g respectively. These masses are compared with the estimated masses of typical short-period comets.