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Danish Team Plans Meteorite Recovery Expedition To Greenland

CAMBRIDGE-CONFERENCE DIGEST, 10 March 1998
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(1) DANISH TEAM PLANS METEORITE RECOVERY EXPEDITION TO GREENLAND
    Jim Bedient 

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(1) DANISH TEAM PLANS METEORITE RECOVERY EXPEDITION TO GREENLAND

From: Jim Bedient 
 
Danes Plan Meteorite Recovery Expedition to Greenland
 
Bj=F8rn Franck J=F8rgensen
Tycho Brahe Planetarium & Omnimax Theater
Copenhagen, Denmark
bjorn@inet.uni-c.dk
 
The Tycho Brahe Planetarium & Omnimax Theater is now organizing a 
search for meteorites from the fall of December 9, 1997.  Several 
institutions are involved in the preparing for an expedition that, 
considering the surface conditions, must take place in late July.  
Currently the area is covered by 2-3 meters (7-8 feet) of snow, which 
will normally melt in May and June. During this time the site will be a 
very dangerous area to visit. Floods and ice sumps cover the melting 
zone and there will be hidden ice canyons and holes in the surface, 
where the water suddenly disappears and falls hundreds of meters into 
deep tunnels.  We have to wait until the surface dries out in late 
July.
 
Holger Pedersen and Torben Risbo (Niels Bohr Institute, Copenhagen) 
have put a lot of work into predicting possible locations of the strewn 
field, or dispersion ellipse, on the icecap.  The suspected area is in 
the area of what we call the melting zone, about 10-15 km (8-10 miles) 
from the edge of the icecap on the southwest coast of Greenland.
 
The size of the original object was probably from meter-size to a small
house. After the object had penetrated nearly 200 km (125 miles) of
atmosphere it came to an explosive fragmentation at an altitude of 14 
km (9 miles). Nearby eyewitnesses noticed that more than twenty larger 
fragments continued in the original direction, still moving fast enough 
to ionize the air around them, until they disappeared behind the local 
horizon (zenith distance 87=F8), equal to an altitude of 3.5 km (2.2 
miles). The calculated fall area has an altitude of 1400-1500 meters 
(4200-4500 feet) and is located on the icecap.
 
The fact that the fragments continued to travel fast enough to cause
ionization of the air around them tells us that they must be rather 
massive and of a size that should make it resonable to search for them, 
when icecap conditions permit.
 
We are now preparing a four man expedition.  The logistics of such an
expedition are difficult, but we are receiving great help from more
experienced groups that have worked in similar regions.
 
We are convinced that this work is scientifically important, and it 
would be of a great help if anyone with satellite data (military or 
otherwise) that traced the visible or infrared signal from the meteor 
of December 9, 1997 (8.11 UT) over the southwestern coast of Greenland 
would contact us. We need this assistance to narrow our search area.  
We have two predicted areas, about 19 km (12 miles) apart.  One is the 
direct result of geometric measurements from the eye-witness reports 
and the other is based on mathematical calculations of the track. The 
distance between the areas is not large, but considering the very 
difficult conditions we will be working under, concentrating the search 
in one 50-70 square kilometer (20-30 square mile) area rather than two 
will greatly aid our effort. We hope to solve this problem in one way 
or another before leaving for Greenland.
 
Involved in the search:
* Niels Bohr Institute, Copenhagen University
* Tycho Brahe Planetarium & Omnimax Theater (TBP)
* Greenland Geological Investigations
* Danish Meteorological Institute
* Danish Polar Center
 
TBP web site: http://www.astro.ku.dk/tycho.html (mostly Danish, but 
links in English).

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