Taurid meteor shower produces prolonged but usually low activity every October and November .
In some years , however , the activity is significantly enhanced .
Previous studies based on long-term activity statistics concluded that the enhancement is caused by a swarm of meteoroids locked in 7:2 resonance with Jupiter .
Here we present precise data on 144 Taurid fireballs observed by new digital cameras of the European Fireball Network in the enhanced activity year 2015 .
Orbits of 113 fireballs show common characteristics and form together a well defined orbital structure , which we call new branch and which was evidently responsible for the enhanced activity .
This new branch is part of Southern Taurids and was encountered by the Earth between October 25 and November 17 .
We found that this branch is characterized by longitudes of perihelia lying between 155.9 – 160 \degr and latitudes of perihelia between 4.2 – 5.7 \degr .
Semimajor axes are between 2.23 – 2.28 AU and indeed overlap with the 7:2 resonance .
Eccentricities are in wide range 0.80 – 0.90 .
The most eccentric orbits with lowest perihelion distances were encountered at the beginning of the activity period .
The orbits form a concentric ring in the inner solar system .
The masses of the observed meteoroids were in a wide range from 0.1 gram to more than 1000 kg .
We found that all meteoroids larger than 300 grams were very fragile ( type IIIB ) , while those smaller than 30 grams were much more compact ( mostly of type II and some of them even type I ) .
Based on orbital characteristics , we argue that asteroids 2015 TX24 and 2005 UR , both of diameters 200 – 300 meters , are direct members of the new branch .
It is therefore very likely that the new branch contains also numerous still not discovered objects of decameter or even larger size .
Since asteroids of sizes of tens to hundreds meters pose a treat to the ground even if they are intrinsically weak , impact hazard increases significantly when the Earth encounters the Taurid new branch every few years .
Further studies leading to better description of this real source of potentially hazardous objects , which can be large enough to cause significant regional or even continental damage on the Earth , are therefore extremely important .