Asta Pellinen-Wannberg
UmeĂĄ University and Swedish Institute of Space Physics
Abstract
Bolides or fireballs always cause high public interest in space phenomena. People become extremely interested to know what caused the fast display that they have witnessed in the sky. Bolides can drop meteorites on the Earth’s surface, which is another exciting topic. Two examples of successful meteorite recovery will be described - how the asteroid 2008 TC3 became the Almahata Sitta meteorite in Sudan just in 20 hours after its detection by the Catalina Sky Survey as well as how a fireball seen in the sky in Southern Ontario caused debris spread around in people’s gardens in the suburbs of Grimsby. The Ritsem bolide was seen over the whole county of Norrbotten on November 10th in 2008 and even registered with the IRF Swedish Infrasound Network (SIN). Ludwik Liszka made estimates on where the meteorite might have exploded. Following the locations given by his method, an expedition was organised together with Rymdgymnasiet to Ritsem on September 16-18, 2010. No meteorites were found, but a lot of experience for new possible excursions was gathered. The “Tromsø meteorite” from June 7th 2007 might be another possible object in our “neighbourhood” worth an expedition. Some facts about the case will be presented.
Created 2012-01-13 13:10:55 by Mats Holmström Last changed 2012-02-22 09:29:36 by Mats Holmström
