Citizen Science with the Desert Fireball Network
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JEM-EUSO: Meteor and Nuclearite Observations
Exp Astron DOI 10.1007/s10686-014-9375-4 ORIGINAL ARTICLE JEM-EUSO: Meteor and nuclearite observations M. Bertaina A. Cellino F. Ronga The JEM-EUSO· Collaboration· · Received: 22 August 2013 / Accepted: 24 February 2014 ©SpringerScience+BusinessMediaDordrecht2014 Abstract Meteor and fireball observations are key to the derivation of both the inven- tory and physical characterization of small solar system bodies orbiting in the vicinity of the Earth. For several decades, observation of these phenomena has only been possible via ground-based instruments. The proposed JEM-EUSO mission has the potential to become the first operational space-based platform to share this capabil- ity. In comparison to the observation of extremely energetic cosmic ray events, which is the primary objective of JEM-EUSO, meteor phenomena are very slow, since their typical speeds are of the order of a few tens of km/sec (whereas cosmic rays travel at light speed). The observing strategy developed to detect meteors may also be applied to the detection of nuclearites, which have higher velocities, a wider range of possible trajectories, but move well below the speed of light and can therefore be considered as slow events for JEM-EUSO. The possible detection of nuclearites greatly enhances the scientific rationale behind the JEM-EUSO mission. Keywords Meteors Nuclearites JEM-EUSO Space detectors · · · M. Bertaina (!) Dipartimento di Fisica, Universit`adiTorino,INFNTorino,viaP.Giuria1,10125Torino,Italy e-mail: [email protected] A. Cellino (!) INAF-Osservatorio Astrofisico di Torino, Strada Osservatorio 20, 10025 Pino Torinese (TO), Italy e-mail: [email protected] F. Ronga (!) Istituto Nazionale di Fisica Nucleare - Laboratori Nazionali di Frascati, Via E. -
Radar-Enabled Recovery of the Sutter's Mill Meteorite, A
RESEARCH ARTICLES the area (2). One meteorite fell at Sutter’sMill (SM), the gold discovery site that initiated the California Gold Rush. Two months after the fall, Radar-Enabled Recovery of the Sutter’s SM find numbers were assigned to the 77 me- teorites listed in table S3 (3), with a total mass of 943 g. The biggest meteorite is 205 g. Mill Meteorite, a Carbonaceous This is a tiny fraction of the pre-atmospheric mass, based on the kinetic energy derived from Chondrite Regolith Breccia infrasound records. Eyewitnesses reported hearing aloudboomfollowedbyadeeprumble.Infra- Peter Jenniskens,1,2* Marc D. Fries,3 Qing-Zhu Yin,4 Michael Zolensky,5 Alexander N. Krot,6 sound signals (table S2A) at stations I57US and 2 2 7 8 8,9 Scott A. Sandford, Derek Sears, Robert Beauford, Denton S. Ebel, Jon M. Friedrich, I56US of the International Monitoring System 6 4 4 10 Kazuhide Nagashima, Josh Wimpenny, Akane Yamakawa, Kunihiko Nishiizumi, (4), located ~770 and ~1080 km from the source, 11 12 10 13 Yasunori Hamajima, Marc W. Caffee, Kees C. Welten, Matthias Laubenstein, are consistent with stratospherically ducted ar- 14,15 14 14,15 16 Andrew M. Davis, Steven B. Simon, Philipp R. Heck, Edward D. Young, rivals (5). The combined average periods of all 17 18 18 19 20 Issaku E. Kohl, Mark H. Thiemens, Morgan H. Nunn, Takashi Mikouchi, Kenji Hagiya, phase-aligned stacked waveforms at each station 21 22 22 22 23 Kazumasa Ohsumi, Thomas A. Cahill, Jonathan A. Lawton, David Barnes, Andrew Steele, of 7.6 s correspond to a mean source energy of 24 4 24 2 25 Pierre Rochette, Kenneth L. -
The Meteoritical Society Newsletter 2011
The Meteoritical Society Newsletter (November 2011) IN THIS ISSUE Important reminders From the President Annual Meetings Renew your membership by Jan. 1! Don’t risk From the Treasurer missing issues of MAPS. And, mailing you Publications Reports reminders is expensive. Renew online at http://metsoc.meteoriticalsociety.net. MAPS GCA Nominate your colleagues and students for Elements awards! Deadlines are in January. See From the Nomenclature Committee Awards section for details. From the Membership Committee Awards Nominations for new fellows are due in Recently Announced Awards January. Nominations are welcome. Call for Nominations From the Secretary Proposals to host the 2016 MetSoc meeting Election of New Council are due in March. Contact the secretary for MetSocCom - Electronic Discussion procedures. Group Vote in the Elements Poll if you haven’t Website Is Moving voted already. I am pleased to report on the some of the major PRESIDENT’S EDITORIAL accomplishments of the past year and some plans for the future. The reports by the treasurer and chairs of I am honored to take over as president from major committees that follow provide many more Hiroko Nagahara and can report that the new council details. has operated successfully for nine months. The new council has met twice, in Houston in March and in Annual Meetings Greenwich in August. One subtheme of our meetings has been to look for new ways to maintain the interest The 74th annual meeting of the Meteoritical and participation of all society members. Another has Society was held at the University of Greenwich in the been to call the attention of the broader scientific Old Royal Naval College on the banks of the River community to our activities. -
Identification of Meteorite Source Regions in the Solar System
Icarus 311 (2018) 271–287 Contents lists available at ScienceDirect Icarus journal homepage: www.elsevier.com/locate/icarus Identification of meteorite source regions in the Solar System ∗ Mikael Granvik a,b, , Peter Brown c,d a Department of Physics, P.O. Box 64, 0 0 014 University of Helsinki, Finland b Department of Computer Science, Electrical and Space Engineering, Luleå University of Technology, Kiruna, Box 848, S-98128, Sweden c Department of Physics and Astronomy, University of Western Ontario, London N6A 3K7, Canada d Centre for Planetary Science and Exploration, University of Western Ontario, London N6A 5B7, Canada a r t i c l e i n f o a b s t r a c t Article history: Over the past decade there has been a large increase in the number of automated camera networks that Received 27 January 2018 monitor the sky for fireballs. One of the goals of these networks is to provide the necessary information Revised 6 April 2018 for linking meteorites to their pre-impact, heliocentric orbits and ultimately to their source regions in the Accepted 13 April 2018 solar system. We re-compute heliocentric orbits for the 25 meteorite falls published to date from original Available online 14 April 2018 data sources. Using these orbits, we constrain their most likely escape routes from the main asteroid belt Keywords: and the cometary region by utilizing a state-of-the-art orbit model of the near-Earth-object population, Meteorites which includes a size-dependence in delivery efficiency. While we find that our general results for escape Meteors routes are comparable to previous work, the role of trajectory measurement uncertainty in escape-route Asteroids identification is explored for the first time. -
Arxiv:1803.02557V2 [Astro-Ph.EP] 30 Apr 2018
Draft version May 1, 2018 Typeset using LATEX default style in AASTeX61 THE DINGLE DELL METEORITE: A HALLOWEEN TREAT FROM THE MAIN BELT Hadrien A. R. Devillepoix,1 Eleanor K. Sansom,1 Philip A. Bland,1 Martin C. Towner,1 Martin Cupak,´ 1 Robert M. Howie,1 Trent Jansen-Sturgeon,1 Morgan A. Cox,1 Benjamin A. D. Hartig,1 Gretchen K. Benedix,1 and Jonathan P. Paxman2 1School of Earth and Planetary Sciences, Curtin University, Bentley, WA 6102, Australia 2School of Civil and Mechanical Engineering, Curtin University, Bentley, WA 6102, Australia ABSTRACT We describe the fall of the Dingle Dell (L/LL 5) meteorite near Morawa in Western Australia on October 31, 2016. The fireball was observed by six observatories of the Desert Fireball Network (DFN), a continental scale facility optimised to recover meteorites and calculate their pre-entry orbits. The 30 cm meteoroid entered at 15.44 km s−1, followed a moderately steep trajectory of 51◦ to the horizon from 81 km down to 19 km altitude, where the luminous flight ended at a speed of 3.2 km s−1. Deceleration data indicated one large fragment had made it to the ground. The four person search team recovered a 1.15 kg meteorite within 130 m of the predicted fall line, after 8 hours of searching, 6 days after the fall. Dingle Dell is the fourth meteorite recovered by the DFN in Australia, but the first before any rain had contaminated the sample. By numerical integration over 1 Ma, we show that Dingle Dell was most likely ejected from the main belt by the 3:1 mean-motion resonance with Jupiter, with only a marginal chance that it came from the nu6 resonance. -
Catching Shooting Stars
PARTNER INSTITUTION PROJECT LEADER @curtin.edu.au SYSTEM XXX TIME ALLOCATED 00 HOURS AREA OF SCIENCE XXX APPLICATIONS USED xx Freshly found 4.5 billion year old meteorite. Credit_Jonathan Paxman, Desert Fireball Network CATCHING SHOOTING STARS Discovering and retrieving newly fallen meteorites can help researchers understand the early workings of the solar system and the origins of our planetary system – including Earth. Over the last fifty years, research attempts to retrieve newly fallen meteorites have met with limited success. Professor Phil Bland, from Curtin University’s Faculty of Science and Engineering, is now leading a team of researchers in a collaborative effort using innovative methodology and supercomputing to achieve results. The Desert Fireball Network (DFN) project uses a network of cameras to detect meteorites or “fireballs” as they fall in the Australian desert. Using the world-class infrastructure at Pawsey Supercomputing Centre, the DFN team stores vast amounts of data and completes trajectory and modelling simulations. The research team can then calculate where a meteorite falls to retrieve, analyze, and trace it back to the parent body in the solar system from where it came. 2016 DESERT FIREBALL NETWORK THE CHALLENGE In November 2015, an 80-kilogram meteor that had been moving at 50 thousand kilometres per hour entered the atmosphere. It created a fireball that streaked across the sky; becoming what some of us refer to as a shooting star. The meteorite then dropped into a remote area of South Australia as a 1.6 kilogram of mottled rock. The Desert Fireball Network had caught the event on camera. -
Fireball Trajectory, Photometry, Dynamics, Fragmentation, Orbit, and Meteorite Recovery
The Žďár nad Sázavou meteorite fall: Fireball trajectory, photometry, dynamics, fragmentation, orbit, and meteorite recovery Pavel Spurný1*, Jiří Borovička1, Lukáš Shrbený1 1Astronomical Institute of the Czech Academy of Sciences, Fričova 298, 25165 Ondřejov Observatory, Czech Republic *Corresponding author. E-mail: [email protected] Abstract We report a comprehensive analysis of the instrumentally observed meteorite fall Žďár nad Sázavou, which occurred in the Czech Republic on 9 December 2014 at 16:16:45-54 UT. The original meteoroid with an estimated initial mass of 150 kg entered the atmosphere with a speed of 21.89 km s-1 and began a luminous trajectory at an altitude of 98.06 km. At the maximum, it reached -15.26 absolute magnitude and terminated after an 9.16 s and 170.5 km long flight at an altitude of 24.71 km with a speed of 4.8 km/s. The average slope of the atmospheric trajectory to the Earth’s surface was only 25.66°. Before its collision with Earth, the initial meteoroid orbited the Sun on a moderately eccentric orbit with perihelion near Venus orbit, aphelion in the outer main belt, and low inclination. During the atmospheric entry, the meteoroid severely fragmented at a very low dynamic pressure 0.016 MPa and further multiple fragmentations occurred at 1.4 – 2.5 MPa. Based on our analysis, so far three small meteorites classified as L3.9 ordinary chondrites totaling 87 g have been found almost exactly in the locations predicted for a given mass. Because of very high quality of photographic and radiometric records, taken by the dedicated instruments of the Czech part of the European Fireball Network, Žďár nad Sázavou belongs to the most reliably, accurately, and thoroughly described meteorite falls in history. -
The Desert Fireball Network: a New Era for Space Science in Australia
The Australian Desert Fireball Network: A new era for planetary science P. A. Bland1,2,3,5, G. K. Benedix2, A. W. R. Bevan*5, K. T. Howard2, P. Spurný4, L. Shrbený1,4, M. C. Towner1, I. A. Franchi6 G. Deacon5, J. Borovička4, D. Vaughan7, R. M. Hough8. 1IARC, Department of Earth Science & Engineering, Imperial College London, SW7 2AZ, UK. 2IARC, Dept. Mineralogy, Natural History Museum, London SW7 5BD, UK. 3Department of Applied Geology, Curtin University of Technology, GPO Box U1987, Perth WA 6845, Australia. 4Astronomical Institute of the Academy of Sciences, Fričova 298, CZ-251 65 Ondřejov Observatory, Czech Republic. 5Department of Earth and Planetary Sciences, Western Australian Museum, Locked Bag 49 Welshpool DC, WA 6986, Australia., Perth, WA 6845, Australia. 6PSSRI, Open University, Walton Hall, Milton Keynes MK7 6AA, UK. 7PO BOX 187, Nedlands, Perth, WA 6909, Australia. 8 CSIRO Earth Science and Resource Engineering, 26 Dick Perry Avenue, Kensington, Western Australia 6151. Corresponding author: [email protected] INTRODUCTION Meteorites are our only direct source of information on the nature of planetary materials in the early Solar System. Most meteorites are believed to be fragments broken from asteroids in solar orbits between Mars and Jupiter, although there are few specific asteroids identified as sources. Other meteorites are fragments from the Moon and Mars. Many asteroidal meteorites have remained virtually unaltered for 4.56 Ga and retain evidence of the earliest formative processes of the Solar System, ranging from pre- solar stellar evolution of the nearby galactic region, to protoplanetary disk formation and the accretion and differentiation of planetesimals and protoplanets. -
The Meteoritical Bulletin, O. 95
Meteoritics & Planetary Science 44, Nr 3, 1–33 (2009) Abstract available online at http://meteoritics.org The Meteoritical Bulletin, o. 95 Michael K. WEISBERG1, 2*, Caroline SMITH3, 4, Gretchen BENEDIX3, Luigi FOLCO5, Kevin RIGHTER6, Jutta ZIPFEL7, Akira YAMAGUCHI8, and Hasnaa CHENNAOUI AOUDJEHANE9 1Department of Physical Science, Kingsborough Community College and the Graduate School of the City University of New York, 2001 Oriental Blvd., Brooklyn, New York 11235, USA 2Department of Earth and Planetary Science, American Museum of Natural History, Central Park West New York, New York 10024, USA 3Department of Mineralogy, The Natural History Museum, Cromwell Road, London SW7 5BD, UK 4School of Geographical and Earth Science, University of Glasgow, Scotland, G12 8QQ, UK 5Museo Nazionale dell’Antartide, Università di Siena, Via Laterina 8, I-53100 Siena, Italy 6Mailcode KT, NASA Johnson Space Center, 2101 NASA Parkway, Houston, Texas 77058, USA 7Sektion Meteoritenforschung, Forschungsinstitut und Naturmuseum Senckenberg, Senckenberganlage 25, D-60325, Frankfurt am Main, Germany 8Antarctic Meteorite Research Center, National Institute of Polar Research, 1-9-10 Kaga, Itabashi, Tokyo 173-8515, Japan 9Université Hassan II Casablanca, Faculté des sciences, Département de Géologie, BP 5366, Mâarif, Casablanca, Morocco *Corresponding author. E-mail: [email protected] (Received 25 February 2009) Abstract–The Meteoritical Bulletin No. 95 reports 1093 (282 non-Antarctic and 801 Antarctic) newly approved meteorite names and their recovery histories, macroscopic descriptions, petrography, mineral compositions and geochemistry. Meteorites reported include lunar meteorites, eucrites, mesosiderites, angrites, ureilites, an acapulcoite, and H, L, LL, R, CO, CM, CK and CV chondrites. Three new falls, the Bunburra Rockhole (Australia) eucrite and the recent (Nov., 2008) Buzzard Coulee (Canada) H4 chondrite, and Tamdakht (Morocco) H5 chondrite are reported. -
Curtin University
Engagement and Impact 2018 Curtin University CUT02 (ST) - Impact Overview Title (Title of the impact study) Desert Fireball Network: Unearthing the secrets of the solar system Unit of Assessment 02 - Physical Sciences Additional FoR codes (Identify up to two additional two-digit FoRs that relate to the overall content of the impact study.) Socio-Economic Objective (SEO) Codes (Choose from the list of two-digit SEO codes that are relevant to the impact study.) 95 - Cultural Understanding 89 - Information and Communication Services Australian and New Zealand Standard Industrial Classification (ANZSIC) Codes (Choose from the list of two-digit ANZSIC codes that are relevant to the impact study.) 82 - Adult, Community and Other Education 90 - Creative and Performing Arts Activities 57 - Internet Publishing and Broadcasting Keywords (List up to 10 keywords related to the impact described in Part A.) Curtin University Engagement and Impact 2018 PDF Created: 6/03/2019 Page 1 of 7 geology astronomy meteorite smartphone app fireball origins of the universe Sensitivities Commercially sensitive Culturally sensitive Sensitivities description (Please describe any sensitivities in relation to the impact study that need to be considered, including any particular instructions for ARC staff or assessors, or for the impact study to be made publicly available after EI 2018.) Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander research flag (Is this impact study associated with Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander content? NOTE - institutions may identify impact studies -
Bunburra Rockhole: Exploring the Geology of a New Differentiated Basaltic Asteroid
45th Lunar and Planetary Science Conference (2014) 1650.pdf BUNBURRA ROCKHOLE: EXPLORING THE GEOLOGY OF A NEW DIFFERENTIATED BASALTIC ASTEROID. G.K. Benedix1,7, P.A. Bland1,7, J. M. Friedrich2,3, D.W. Mittlefehldt4, M.E. Sanborn5, Q.-Z. Yin5, R.C. Greenwood6, I.A. Franchi6, A.W.R. Bevan7, M.C. Towner1 and Grace C. Perotta2. 1Dept. Applied Geology, Curtin University, GPO Box U1987, Perth, WA, 6845 Australia ([email protected]), 2Dept. Chem., Fordham University, 441 East Fordham Road, Bronx, NY 10458 USA, 3Dept. Earth & Planetary Sciences, American Museum of Natural History, New York, NY 10024, USA, 4NASA/Johnson Space Center, Houston, TX, USA, 5Dept. of Earth and Planetary Sciences, University of California at Davis, Davis, CA 95616, USA, 6Planetary & Space Sci., The Open University, Milton Keynes, MK7 6AA, UK, 7Western Australia Museum, Locked Bag 49, Welshpool, WA, 6986, Australia. Introduction: Bunburra Rockhole (BR) is the first versity for chemical analysis. Four of these were ana- recovered meteorite of the Desert Fireball Network [1]. lysed for major and trace elements and two for trace It was initially classified as a basaltic eucrite, based on elements only. Two of these subsamples (A/1 and texture, mineralogy, and mineral chemistry [2] but C/A/2) were analysed at UC Davis to investigate the Cr subsequent O isotopic analyses showed that BR’s isotopic systematics. Homogenized powders from the composition lies significantly far away from the HED two chips were dissolved in Parr bombs for a 96 hour group of meteorites (fig. 1) [1]. This suggested that period at 200°C to insure complete dissolution of re- BR was not a piece of the HED parent body (4 Vesta), fractory minerals such as spinel. -
Small Near-Earth Asteroids As a Source of Meteorites
Small Near-Earth Asteroids as a Source of Meteorites Jiří Borovička and Pavel Spurný Astronomical Institute of the Czech Academy of Sciences Peter Brown University of Western Ontario __________________________________________________________________________ Small asteroids intersecting Earth’s orbit can deliver extraterrestrial rocks to the Earth, called meteorites. This process is accompanied by a luminous phenomena in the atmosphere, called bolides or fireballs. Observations of bolides provide pre-atmospheric orbits of meteorites, physical and chemical properties of small asteroids, and the flux (i.e. frequency of impacts) of bodies at the Earth in the centimeter to decameter size range. In this chapter we explain the processes occurring during the penetration of cosmic bodies through the atmosphere and review the methods of bolide observations. We compile available data on the fireballs associated with 22 instrumentally observed meteorite falls. Among them are the heterogeneous falls Almahata Sitta (2008 TC3) and Benešov, which revolutionized our view on the structure and composition of small asteroids, the Příbram-Neuschwanstein orbital pair, carbonaceous chondrite meteorites with orbits on the asteroid-comet boundary, and the Chelyabinsk fall, which produced a damaging blast wave. While most meteoroids disrupt into fragments during atmospheric flight, the Carancas meteoroid remained nearly intact and caused a crater-forming explosion on the ground. 1. INTRODUCTION Well before the first asteroid was discovered, people unknowingly had asteroid samples in their hands. Could stones fall from the sky? For many centuries, the official answer was: NO. Only at the end of the 18th century and the beginning of the 19th century did the evidence that rocks did fall from the sky become so overwhelming that this fact was accepted by the scientific community.