Idea: The FIREBALL48 Meteor Investigation Network
Posted: Fri Nov 26, 2010 5:09 pm
This idea has been bubbling around in my wee brain for a while, but for some reason this morning some parts of it fell into place and the whole project seemed not only more doable and useful, but a lot of fun for those "Citizen Scientists" participating. One does not need detailed knowledge about meteors to help -- interest, intelligence, and savvy alone will be quite useful here. Maybe something like this will never work in practice, but it might be cool to try. Here goes:
A goal of this project is to connect fireballs and meteorites with the comet or asteroid of origin. This has only been done a few times, and in this modern digital age where many people own digital cameras and cell phones, there might be opportunity for improvement. Also, NASA and other space agencies spends millions sending spacecraft to comets and asteroids to study them and bring back pieces. It might help if a ragtag group of sky enthusiasts could make a difference on a much more modest budget and with existing technology.
When a very bright meteor (dubbed a "fireball") is first reported somewhere in the world, someone should post this to the Asterisk as soon as possible with as much information as they can find, including as many informative links as they can find. This might include a TV report, for example, or comments to other bulletin boards. At this point, if the fireball is bright enough to be seen fortuitously in the background of images and videos taken for other purposes, one of the regulars on this forum should email me (RJN) that I should consider placing a "hook" about it on APOD. If I am awake, coherent, and agree, a "hook" will be placed at the bottom of the main NASA APOD page (astropix.html) asking for volunteers to spring into action. The purpose of the hook is to get as many people involved as possible. This may turn out to be one of the scientific attributes of APOD, leveraging APOD's role as a primary "watering hole" for sky enthusiasts for scientific ulitity.
This whole process would do best taking place quickly, though. As time goes by, interest will wane, and sky recording devices that might have imaged the fireball will be erased or reset. Also, any meteorites on the ground may be lost or covered over. That is why the "48" exists in the FIREBALL48 title. In analogy with the US TV show "48 Hours", if fireball information is not uncovered quickly, perhaps in the first 48 hours since the fireball occurred, key information about the fireball might be lost forever. Quick actions might be very important.
When a suitable Fireball occurs, a single leader for collecting information about this fireball on the Asterisk should volunteer or accept the position of "Fireball Leader". If the fireball occurred on 2010 November 26, for example, the person might be known as the "Fireball48 2010Nov26 Force Leader". The Fireball Leader will lead in the recovery of fireball information, for example making suggestions on the Asterisk as to how to best proceed for this particular fireball.
The Fireball Leader may then try to recruit very specific individuals that could help gain crucial information about the fireball. Of course finding the approximate location of the fireball, and showing this on Google Maps (for example), would be a good early step. People would then try to estimate from what locations on Earth the fireball might have been seen. The language spoken in key towns would be important to know. The Fireball Leader would try to recruit by email someone to help that speaks the main language of the area. A Twitter search term might be coined so that people searching Twitter for tweets involving "#FB2010Nov26" could be found.
People on the Asterisk would then use Google Maps and email to try to contact people and businesses in the fireball path would might have video of the fireball. Here Google Street View might be important. This might also include finding local online bulletin boards and posting requests there asking if anyone saw the fireball and if anyone has images or video. If anything appears in the local press, someone might post a response comment to the local story again asking if anyone has any information or video about the fireball. Efforts and responses would be echoed back to the Asterisk so that everyone, including the Fireball Leader, can be up to date.
A local university might be contacted so that local students might get involved in tracking the fireball. These students might be deployed "door-to-door" checking local businesses for security cameras that might have seen the fireball in the background. It might be good for the Leader to request that someone local act as a 'Ground Leader" to coordinate local ground activities. If recovered, the exact position that the images were taken from would be important, as well as the exact times the images were taken. Later, these same students might enjoy checking key locations to see if the fireball produced any meteorites. Magnets might be immediately deployed along the path to try to catch metallic micrometeorites (if any) slowly flittering down from the fireball.
Now the time noted on the image (EXIF data, for example) might exist but not be exact, so some effort might be devoted to determining the exact time of the images. One method is to find the camera and determine its present time offset from a standard clock, as well as how fast that clock gets out of synch.
If more than one photograph and video are recovered, the Fireball Leader might then contact someone skilled in celestial mechanics to see if there is sufficient information to determine the fireballs origin on the sky and destination on the ground (if any). This celestial mechanic might indicate that additional images taken in a very certain time period would be particularly important to find for reconstructing 3D meteor trajectory information.
If other groups are found trying to do the same thing, information about them should be posted to the Asterisk, and any information our FIREBALL48 network gains should be shared with them as well.
A few fireballs a year seem to be popping up in the past few years, some of them even discussed informally here on the Asterisk. I've had the (unrealistic) dream of (one day) dropping everything and immediately traveling to fireball locations and trying to cull the needed trajectory information. Now, however, I think much of this can be better done by a group of savvy sky enthusiasts over the Internet, and by recruiting people local to the fireball. Thoughts? Tweeks? Would anyone be interested in playing along?
- RJN
A goal of this project is to connect fireballs and meteorites with the comet or asteroid of origin. This has only been done a few times, and in this modern digital age where many people own digital cameras and cell phones, there might be opportunity for improvement. Also, NASA and other space agencies spends millions sending spacecraft to comets and asteroids to study them and bring back pieces. It might help if a ragtag group of sky enthusiasts could make a difference on a much more modest budget and with existing technology.
When a very bright meteor (dubbed a "fireball") is first reported somewhere in the world, someone should post this to the Asterisk as soon as possible with as much information as they can find, including as many informative links as they can find. This might include a TV report, for example, or comments to other bulletin boards. At this point, if the fireball is bright enough to be seen fortuitously in the background of images and videos taken for other purposes, one of the regulars on this forum should email me (RJN) that I should consider placing a "hook" about it on APOD. If I am awake, coherent, and agree, a "hook" will be placed at the bottom of the main NASA APOD page (astropix.html) asking for volunteers to spring into action. The purpose of the hook is to get as many people involved as possible. This may turn out to be one of the scientific attributes of APOD, leveraging APOD's role as a primary "watering hole" for sky enthusiasts for scientific ulitity.
This whole process would do best taking place quickly, though. As time goes by, interest will wane, and sky recording devices that might have imaged the fireball will be erased or reset. Also, any meteorites on the ground may be lost or covered over. That is why the "48" exists in the FIREBALL48 title. In analogy with the US TV show "48 Hours", if fireball information is not uncovered quickly, perhaps in the first 48 hours since the fireball occurred, key information about the fireball might be lost forever. Quick actions might be very important.
When a suitable Fireball occurs, a single leader for collecting information about this fireball on the Asterisk should volunteer or accept the position of "Fireball Leader". If the fireball occurred on 2010 November 26, for example, the person might be known as the "Fireball48 2010Nov26 Force Leader". The Fireball Leader will lead in the recovery of fireball information, for example making suggestions on the Asterisk as to how to best proceed for this particular fireball.
The Fireball Leader may then try to recruit very specific individuals that could help gain crucial information about the fireball. Of course finding the approximate location of the fireball, and showing this on Google Maps (for example), would be a good early step. People would then try to estimate from what locations on Earth the fireball might have been seen. The language spoken in key towns would be important to know. The Fireball Leader would try to recruit by email someone to help that speaks the main language of the area. A Twitter search term might be coined so that people searching Twitter for tweets involving "#FB2010Nov26" could be found.
People on the Asterisk would then use Google Maps and email to try to contact people and businesses in the fireball path would might have video of the fireball. Here Google Street View might be important. This might also include finding local online bulletin boards and posting requests there asking if anyone saw the fireball and if anyone has images or video. If anything appears in the local press, someone might post a response comment to the local story again asking if anyone has any information or video about the fireball. Efforts and responses would be echoed back to the Asterisk so that everyone, including the Fireball Leader, can be up to date.
A local university might be contacted so that local students might get involved in tracking the fireball. These students might be deployed "door-to-door" checking local businesses for security cameras that might have seen the fireball in the background. It might be good for the Leader to request that someone local act as a 'Ground Leader" to coordinate local ground activities. If recovered, the exact position that the images were taken from would be important, as well as the exact times the images were taken. Later, these same students might enjoy checking key locations to see if the fireball produced any meteorites. Magnets might be immediately deployed along the path to try to catch metallic micrometeorites (if any) slowly flittering down from the fireball.
Now the time noted on the image (EXIF data, for example) might exist but not be exact, so some effort might be devoted to determining the exact time of the images. One method is to find the camera and determine its present time offset from a standard clock, as well as how fast that clock gets out of synch.
If more than one photograph and video are recovered, the Fireball Leader might then contact someone skilled in celestial mechanics to see if there is sufficient information to determine the fireballs origin on the sky and destination on the ground (if any). This celestial mechanic might indicate that additional images taken in a very certain time period would be particularly important to find for reconstructing 3D meteor trajectory information.
If other groups are found trying to do the same thing, information about them should be posted to the Asterisk, and any information our FIREBALL48 network gains should be shared with them as well.
A few fireballs a year seem to be popping up in the past few years, some of them even discussed informally here on the Asterisk. I've had the (unrealistic) dream of (one day) dropping everything and immediately traveling to fireball locations and trying to cull the needed trajectory information. Now, however, I think much of this can be better done by a group of savvy sky enthusiasts over the Internet, and by recruiting people local to the fireball. Thoughts? Tweeks? Would anyone be interested in playing along?
- RJN
I suggest you just shoot for "AWAKE". That's enough to try anyone's cognetive agreeability 
