UKFall - The UK Fireball Alliance
The UK Fireball Alliance aims to recover freshly-fallen meteorites in the UK. Led by staff of the Natural History Museum, UKFall is a collaboration between the UK’s meteor camera networks.
The Science
About 65,000 meteorites have been found world-wide
Only about 40 of these 65,000 were photographed as they arrived as a fireball
Meteor camera networks photograph incoming meteors from multiple locations
That allows the meteor’s path through the atmosphere to be calculated accurately
From this, the meteorite’s likely landing point can be estimated
This helps us find it before it gets rained on or very contaminated
The object’s orbit before hitting the Earth can also be calculated.
So, we have a freshly-recovered object and we know where in the solar system it came from; a really powerful combination that helps us understand the solar system.
Also, the meteorite’s hardness, strength, density and composition can be compared with its path through the atmosphere to learn more about the physics of meteorite and comet impacts.
The People
UK-based members of the UKFall team include the coordinators of each of the UK fireball camera networks, plus academic staff of UK institutions involved in space science, geology or in the study and curation of meteorites.
Overseas members include the coordinators of some of the international fireball networks and specialists in trajectory, orbit and strewn field calculations.
The Camera Networks
The participating UK meteor camera networks are:
UK Meteor Observation Network www.ukmeteornetwork.co.uk
SCAMP, part of the French FRIPON network www.scamp.org.uk
UK Fireball Network, part of the Global Fireball Network www.fireballsinthesky.com.au
Global Meteor Network www.globalmeteornetwork.org
Dr Ashley King and Dr Luke Daly talk about UKFall in August 2020
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