[meteorite-list] Nasa builds meteor-tracking 'Fireball Network'

From: Thunder Stone <stanleygregr_at_meteoritecentral.com>
Date: Wed, 16 Mar 2011 13:21:32 -0700
Message-ID: <SNT117-W3548EC2DFF0674944EE22AD2CE0_at_phx.gbl>

List:
 
Now this sounds interesting.
 
Greg S.
 
 
http://www.wired.co.uk/news/archive/2011-03/16/nasa-fireball-network
 
 
US space agency Nasa is planning to cover the United States with cameras facing upward to track meteorites as they enter the atmosphere.
The scheme, which has been named the "All-sky Fireball Network" will allow researchers to triangulate observations of space rocks to try and figure out where they're going to land, making them easier to recover. It's entirely automated -- computers scan the images received to try and work out which objects are meteors, and then send any positive results to Nasa, which puts them on the web.
The network currently consists of just three cameras -- in the US states of Alabama, Georgia and Tennessee. Nasa's William Cooke, head of the agency's Meteoroid Environment Office, hopes to expand that to 15 cameras across the eastern half of the US, and is talking to schools, planetariums and science centres to host them. "If someone calls me and asks 'What was that?' I'll be able to tell them," he told Singularity Hub.
Other meteorite monitoring systems exist, particularly over the less-populated western half of the US, but the Fireball Network is the first that's completely automated, using optical recognition technology to identify the flaming signature of a meteorite burning up in the atmosphere (or the occasional spider). Eventually, it's hoped that the various meteor-monitoring networks could link up to cover the whole country.
It's not a warning system -- once a meteor is detected it'll likely be too late to alert any nearby residents. But data from the Fireball Network will be used to improve the shielding used on spacecraft, as well as being kept as a record of every large meteoroid to burn up over the US. It'll also help researchers track more of them down.
One of Cooke's assistants told Nasa's Science News: "Most meteorites fall in the ocean, lakes, forests, farmer's fields, or the Antarctic?and the majority of those meteorites will never be found. But our system will help us track down more of them."
Received on Wed 16 Mar 2011 04:21:32 PM PDT