NASA’s All Sky Fireball Network
Intro:
The NASA All-sky Fireball Network is a network of cameras set up by the
NASA Meteoroid Environment Office (MEO) with the goal of observing
meteors brighter than the planet Venus, which are called fireballs. The
collected data will be used by the MEO in constructing models of the
meteoroid environment, which are important to spacecraft designers.
Network:
The network currently consists of 8 cameras, 6 of which are placed in
locations in north Alabama, north Georgia, southern Tennessee, and
southern North Carolina. The remaining 2 are located in southern New
Mexico. The network is growing all the time, with plans to place a total
of 15 cameras in schools, science centers, and planetaria in the United
States, predominantly east of the Mississippi River, where there are
few such systems.
“What was that bright light in the sky last night?”
Cameras:
Cameras in the network are specialized black and white video cameras
with lenses that allow for a view of the whole night sky overhead.
Data: The
cameras have overlapping fields of view, which means that the same
fireball can be detected by more than one camera. This allows us to
calculate the height of the fireball and how fast it is going. We can
even work out the orbit of the meteoroid responsible for creating the
fireball, which gives us clues about whether it came from a comet or an
asteroid. If the fireball is traveling slow enough, and makes it low
enough, it is possible that it can survive to the ground as a meteorite.
This website:
This website displays fireball data in the form of images, movies,
diagrams, and text files. The data is organized by date. Click on a
date in the list on the left to see the fireballs detected that night.
If the page appears blank that means no fireballs were detected,
probably because of bad weather. The website is automatically updated
every morning at 8:00 am Central Time. Only the last 3 weeks of data is
available online.
For more information, contact Dr. Bill Cooke or check out the MEO website.
Si ça reste en l'état, à peu de choses près, ça va nous faire un beau triangle en face de la Terre pour le 21 décembre.