  A meteoroid's hypersonic passage through the Earth's atmosphere results in
ablational and fragmentational mass loss. Potential shock waves associated with
a parent object as well as its fragments can modify the surrounding atmosphere
and produce a range of physico-chemical effects. Some of the thermally driven
chemical and physical processes induced by meteoroid-fragment generated shock
waves, such as nitric oxide (NO) production, are less understood. Any estimates
of meteoric NO production depend not only on a quantifiable meteoroid
population and a rate of fragmentation, with a size capable of producing high
temperature flows, but also on understanding the physical properties of the
meteor flows along with their thermal history. We performed an exploratory
pilot numerical study using ANSYS Fluent, the CFD code, to investigate the
production of NO in the upper atmosphere by small meteoroids (or fragments of
meteoroids after they undergo a disruption episode) in the size range from 1 cm
m to 1 m. Our model uses the simulation of a spherical body in the continuum
flow at 70 and 80 km altitude to approximate the behaviour of a small meteoroid
capable of producing NO. The results presented in this exploratory study are in
good agreement with previous studies.
