[meteorite-list] What's Hitting Earth?

From: meteoritefinder at yahoo.com <meteoritefinder_at_meteoritecentral.com>
Date: Tue, 1 Mar 2011 20:40:29 -0600
Message-ID: <FB0F5BC6-00FB-46FC-BFC7-F69893B7961D_at_yahoo.com>

Yeah, Ron, like you, I thought this was newsworthy and I posted this to the List about 20 hrs ago. But no discussion here at all since then. Strange.
Robert Woolard

Sent from my iPhone

On Mar 1, 2011, at 7:21 PM, Ron Baalke <baalke at zagami.jpl.nasa.gov> wrote:

>
> http://science.nasa.gov/science-news/science-at-nasa/2011/01mar_meteornetwork/
>
> What's Hitting Earth?
> NASA Science News
>
> March 1, 2011: Every day about 100 tons of meteoroids -- fragments of
> dust and gravel and sometimes even big rocks - enter the Earth's
> atmosphere. Stand out under the stars for more than a half an hour on a
> clear night and you'll likely see a few of the meteors produced by the
> onslaught. But where does all this stuff come from? Surprisingly, the
> answer is not well known.
>
> Now NASA is deploying a network of smart cameras across the United
> States to answer the question, 'What's Hitting Earth?'
>
> Did that meteor you saw blazing through the sky last night come from the
> asteroid belt? Was it created in a comet's death throes? Or was it a
> piece of space junk meeting a fiery demise?
>
> "When I get to work each morning and power up my computer, there's an
> email waiting with answers," says William Cooke, head of NASA's
> Meteoroid Environment Office. "And I don't have to lift a finger, except
> to click my mouse button."
>
> Groups of smart cameras in the new meteor network triangulate the
> fireballs' paths, and special software^1 uses the data to compute their
> orbits and email Cooke his morning message.
>
> "If someone calls me and asks 'What was that?' I'll be able to tell
> them. We'll have a record of every big meteoroid that enters the
> atmosphere over the certain parts of the U.S. Nothing will burn up in
> those skies without me knowing about it!"
>
> In other U.S. meteor networks, someone has to manually look at all the
> cameras' data and calculate the orbits - a painstaking process.
>
> "With our network, our computers do it for us - and fast," says Cooke.
>
> The network's first three cameras, each about the size of a gumball
> machine, are already up and running. Cooke's team will soon have 15
> cameras deployed east of the Mississippi River, with plans to expand
> nationwide^2 . Cooke is actively seeking schools, science centers, and
> planetaria willing to host his cameras. Criteria are listed in the notes
> at the end of this story.
>
> In addition to tracking fireballs and their orbits, Cooke's system gives
> him other valuable information.
>
> "It provides data on meteor speed as a function of size - and this is
> critical to calibrating the models we use in designing spacecraft."
>
> Meteorite hunters will reap benefits too. By determining a bright
> fireball's trajectory through the atmosphere, the network's software can
> calculate whether it will plunge to Earth and pinpoint the impact
> location fairly precisely.
>
> "And when we collect the meteorite chunks, we'll know their source. I
> could be holding a piece of Vesta in my hand.^3 It would be like a free
> sample return mission!"
>
> Opportunities like that, however, will be rare. "Most meteorites fall in
> the ocean, lakes, forests, farmer's fields, or the Antarctic," says
> Rhiannon Blaauw, who assists Cooke. "And the majority of those
> meteorites will never be found. But our system will help us track down
> more of them."
>
> All cameras in the network send their fireball information to Cooke and
> to a public website, fireballs.ndc.nasa.gov. Teachers can contact Cooke
> at William.J.Cooke at nasa.gov to request teacher workshop slides
> containing suggestions for classroom use of the data. Students can learn
> to plot fireball orbits and speeds, where the objects hit the ground,
> how high in the atmosphere the fireballs burn up, etc.
>
> Cooke gives this advice to students and others who want to try meteor
> watching on their own:
>
> "Go out on a clear night, lie flat on your back, and look straight up.
> It will take 30 to 40 minutes for your eyes to become light adapted, so
> be patient. By looking straight up, you may catch meteor streaks with
> your peripheral vision too. You don't need any special equipment -- just
> your eyes."
>
> One more thing -- don't forget to check the website
> <http://fireballs.ndc.nasa.gov/> to find out what you saw!
>
>
> Author: Dauna Coulter
> Editor: Dr. Tony Phillips
> Credit: Science at NASA
>
> *More Information*
>
> (1) The smart meteor network uses ASGARD (All Sky and Guided Automatic
> Realtime Detection) software, developed at the University of Western
> Ontario with both NASA and Canadian funding, to process the information
> and perform the triangulation needed to determine the orbits and origins
> of the fireballs. The Southern Ontario Meteor Network, or SOMN, composed
> of seven cameras, also uses the ASGARD system.
>
> (2) The cameras will be deployed in clusters of 5. One group will be
> spread over the Southeast US, another in the Ohio and Kentucky area (to
> overlap with the Southern Ontario Meteor Network, or SOMN), and another
> along the Atlantic coast in the NorthEast. "Our hope is that at least
> one of the three regions will have clear skies at any given time."
>
> *Here are the criteria* that must be met for a location to be considered
> as a camera site:
>
> 1. Location east of the Mississippi River
> 2. Clear horizon (few trees)
> 3. Few bright lights (none close to camera)
> 4. Fast internet connection
>
> (3) The meteorite will have been altered by its journey, so it is not a
> pristine sample, but, says Cooke, it is a good enough sample to give you
> basic characteristics of the non-volatiles.
>
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Received on Tue 01 Mar 2011 09:40:29 PM PST