Need to find a meteorite? Call your fireball astronomers!

William Atkins
Friday, 18 September 2009 19:22

Science - Space

An international team of scientists found a small meteorite on the giant Nullarbor Plain, but even more amazing was the fact that they were able to retrace its orbit back to its parent asteroid.


The finding was reported in the September 18, 2009 issue of the magazine Science.

Its title “An Anomalous Basaltic Meteorite from the Innermost Main Belt” (DOL 10.1126/science.1174787, vol. 325, no. 5947, pp. 1525-1527), was published by an international group of astronomers from Australia, the United Kingdom, the United States, and the Czech Republic.

The astronomers found the meteorite while using “three ‘all-sky cameras’ on the Nullarbor Plain to form a fireball camera network.” [CSIRO: ”Nullarbor fireball cameras find rare meteorite”]

The Nullarbor Plain is a flat, almost treeless area north of the Great Australian Bight. At its widest point, it extends east to west from South Australia to Western Australia about 1,200 kilometers (750 miles). [edited 9/19/09]

The abstract to the paper states, “Triangulated observations of fireballs allow us to determine orbits and fall positions for meteorites.”

The three cameras combined to image the meteor, over the entire night, as it streaked across the darkened sky (as a “fireball”) with a single time-lapse photograph.

The astronomers were then able to approximately locate its crash site (“fall position”) from this data.

Then, they used mathematical equations to come up with its previous orbit and its origin at its parent asteroid.

Page two provides pictures of the meteorite, along with comments from the astronomers as to where the meteorite came from.