NASA All Sky Fireball Network

[Psnarf]

Every day http://spaceweather.com displays the orbits of fireballs calculated from the all sky network of cameras. Some days have over 30 fireball orbits. The parabolic-shaped orbits are probably known comet dust trails. The rest appear to be asteroid-related, with orbits reaching as far as the space between Jupiter and Mars. All orbit the sun, but their paths cross Earth's orbit on the night their fireballs were detected. Every day Earth passes through the remains of an asteroid or comet. Are the asteroid-related fireballs one-off, or will there be meteors and/or fireball when we pass the same orbital position next year? Is there an archive of the accumulated data somewhere? If they are pieces or dust broken off asteroids colliding with something, such data might come in handy for predicting good nights for meteor watching (in addition to the known annual showers).

[Chris Peterson]

Every day http://spaceweather.com displays the orbits of fireballs calculated from the all sky network of cameras. Some days have over 30 fireball orbits. The parabolic-shaped orbits are probably known comet dust trails. The rest appear to be asteroid-related, with orbits reaching as far as the space between Jupiter and Mars. All orbit the sun, but their paths cross Earth's orbit on the night their fireballs were detected. Every day Earth passes through the remains of an asteroid or comet. Are the asteroid-related fireballs one-off, or will there be meteors and/or fireball when we pass the same orbital position next year? Is there an archive of the accumulated data somewhere? If they are pieces or dust broken off asteroids colliding with something, such data might come in handy for predicting good nights for meteor watching (in addition to the known annual showers).

A couple of meteor showers result from asteroidal debris streams (as opposed to cometary). Some apparently sporadic meteors are actually from very diffuse debris streams, and are actually members of periodic showers, although with activity levels so low they may not rise above the background noise.

Most sporadic fireballs are just that: one-of-a-kind meteors that have no predictive value for future events.

There are several million meteors with data in publicly accessible databases, many of these with decent orbit data.

[Psnarf]

Thank you, Chris! Just because the orbital origin of a fireball appears to be a closed ellipse, that fireball may be the only object in that trajectory. I was worried about the ISS astronauts, who would be busy making repairs every day if there were any more debris in all of those calculated orbits. The rock the size of a car that exploded 2Jan 3,000km east of Venezuela would be reason enough to hide under the bed next year if there were any more like it in that orbit. I know the asteroid belt is perturbed by Jupiter's gravity and collisions with comets which knock them out of orbit, fortunately a rare occasion.