[meteorite-list] Cameras Capture a 5-Second Fireball and Its Meteorite's Secrets (Neuschwanstein Meteorite)

From: Ron Baalke <baalke_at_meteoritecentral.com>
Date: Thu Apr 22 10:25:39 2004
Message-ID: <200305131511.IAA14916_at_zagami.jpl.nasa.gov>

http://www.nytimes.com/2003/05/13/science/space/13METE.html

Cameras Capture a 5-Second Fireball and Its Meteorite's Secrets
By HENRY FOUNTAIN
New York Times
May 13, 2003

With meteorites, as with fine art, provenance counts for a lot. But much
more is known about a van Gogh or a Picasso, say, than about most
meteorites.

They come from space, sure, but beyond that little is certain.

Now, however, a meteorite has been found in southern Germany, and a precise
orbit has been determined for it. The four-pound rock, named the
Neuschwanstein for the Bavarian castle near where it was found in July, is a
remnant of a five-second fireball captured on film three months earlier by a
network of tracking cameras in Central Europe.

This is the fourth time in more than 40 years that a meteorite has been
found after such cameras had photographed its fireball, said Dr. Pavel
Spurny, the coordinator of the European Fireball Network and an astronomer
at the Astronomical Institute of the Academy of Sciences of the Czech
Republic. What is even more remarkable, Dr. Spurny said, is that the orbit
of this rock matches that of the first meteorite discovered in this way, in
1959.

"The most unique fact is that two of these have the same orbit," Dr. Spurny
said.

It is not just coincidence, he added. The two are no doubt part of a stream
of rocks, probably fragments of one parent asteroid in an elliptical orbit
around the Sun that extends nearly to Jupiter.

The Neuschwanstein fireball was photographed by 10 of his network's 30
stations in Austria, the Czech Republic, Germany and Slovakia. Each station
has a fixed camera with a very wide-angle lens and a rotating shutter that
enables the velocity of the meteor to be determined at various points as it
streaks across the sky. Taking the seven best images, Dr. Spurny and others
used simple triangulation to calculate the trajectory.

They determined that the meteor first appeared at an altitude of 275,000
feet northeast of Innsbruck, Austria, entering the atmosphere at an angle of
almost 50 degrees, and traveled 50 miles northwest, disappearing at 52,000
feet. Its initial speed was 13 miles a second, slowing to 1 1/2 miles a
second. Their findings are reported in the current issue of Nature.

With this information, the researchers determined that the meteor had an
initial mass of 650 pounds and calculated the trajectory of the "dark
flight" of the estimated 30 pounds of rock that remained after the fireball
had burned out. The meteorite was found was a few hundred yards from the
predicted impact area, and scientists assume other fragments are in the
general area.

Jack Drummond, a scientist at the Air Force's Starfire Optical Range at
Kirtland Air Force Base in Albuquerque, said the Neuschwanstein find was a
rare high point in observing fireballs.

"For 45 years or so, networks have been trying to do this," Mr. Drummond
said. While they have tracked plenty of fireballs - the European network
records 40 to 50 a year - the goal of finding related meteorites has been
elusive, and two North American networks have been disbanded for lack of
financing.

"It's been very disappointing," he said.
Received on Tue 13 May 2003 11:11:33 AM PDT