{"id":19683,"date":"2021-03-10T02:12:47","date_gmt":"2021-03-09T18:12:47","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.curtin.edu.au\/news\/media-release\/curtin-university-led-global-fireball-observatory-makes-rare-find\/"},"modified":"2024-09-24T11:41:38","modified_gmt":"2024-09-24T03:41:38","slug":"curtin-university-led-global-fireball-observatory-makes-rare-find","status":"publish","type":"media-release","link":"https:\/\/www.curtin.edu.au\/news\/media-release\/curtin-university-led-global-fireball-observatory-makes-rare-find\/","title":{"rendered":"Â鶹ֱ²¥-led Global Fireball Observatory makes rare find"},"content":{"rendered":"

Â鶹ֱ²¥ has played a major role in the recovery of a rare meteorite in the UK,\u00a0made possible by\u00a0dedicated fireball observatories\u00a0set up as part of\u00a0the\u00a0Curtin-led\u00a0Global Fireball Observatory (GFO).<\/p>\n

Lead scientist of Curtin\u2019s GFO<\/a>\u00a0team\u00a0Dr Hadrien\u00a0Devillepoix\u00a0said the achievement was\u00a0in\u00a0the\u00a0true spirit of\u00a0the Global Fireball Observatory, which is\u00a0a collaboration of 18 partner institutions, including NASA, across eight countries and six continents.<\/p>\n

\u201cThanks to the expertise and technology\u00a0developed\u00a0at Â鶹ֱ²¥ to\u00a0build\u00a0the Desert Fireball Network, we established partnerships around the world to install these systems and observe meteorite falls globally,\u201d\u00a0Dr\u00a0Devillepoix\u00a0said.<\/p>\n

Dr\u00a0Devillepoix\u00a0and researchers from\u00a0Curtin\u2019s\u00a0Space Science and Technology Centre (SSTC<\/a>) who lead the GFO, were able to recreate the flight path of the space rock through the atmosphere\u00a0to predict a fall area for meteorite fragments.<\/p>\n

Fragments of the meteorite were recovered in Winchcombe, Gloucestershire, within\u00a0400m of the predicted position by members of the public, as part of\u00a0dedicated searches led by Curtin graduate Dr Luke\u00a0Daly,\u00a0now of the University of Glasgow.<\/p>\n

Now with the Natural History Museum, the meteorite is an extremely rare type known as a carbonaceous chondrite,\u00a0similar to\u00a0the\u00a0Murchison meteorite<\/a> and\u00a0containing\u00a0water and\u00a0amino acids, which are\u00a0the building\u00a0blocks of life.<\/p>\n

Recovering abundant quantities of this pristine meteorite so quickly is comparable to the samples recently returned from space by the Hayabusa2<\/a> mission and the\u00a0international efforts of the UK Fireball Alliance and GFO\u00a0have also determined where this meteorite came from in the solar system, linking this incredible sample to its origins in space.<\/p>\n

GFO program manager\u00a0Dr Eleanor Sansom\u00a0from Curtin\u2019s SSTC said it was an incredible first recovery for\u00a0the\u00a0UK partners and a fantastic demonstration of the unprecedented power of collaboration in unravelling the mysteries of our solar system.<\/p>\n

\u201cBy expanding Australia\u2019s Desert Fireball Network worldwide as the Global Fireball Observatory, we have extended the area of skies we cover to increase the possibility of observing a rare meteorite fall, like this one,\u201d Dr Sansom said.<\/p>\n

SSTC Director,\u00a0John Curtin Distinguished Professor Phil Bland\u00a0said meteorites\u00a0fell to Earth every day, but we don\u2019t know when they will land on Earth or where\u00a0in the solar\u00a0system\u00a0they come from.<\/p>\n

\u201cIt\u2019s\u00a0a\u00a0tantalising\u00a0incomplete puzzle we are trying to solve with just the meteorites\u00a0alone,\u201d\u00a0Professor Bland said.<\/p>\n

\u201cBeing able to piece together the recovered sample with its origins in space and expand our efforts with our\u00a0international\u00a0partners means the Global Fireball Observatory networks have the potential to uncover the clues to solar system evolution, unlocking nothing short of the origins of life on Earth.\u201d<\/p>\n

The Desert Fireball Network in Australia has recovered\u00a0over 20 per cent\u00a0of the world\u2019s meteorites with known orbits and has recently expanded this effort\u00a0worldwide\u00a0with the\u00a0ARC funded\u00a0Global Fireball Observatory.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Â鶹ֱ²¥ has played a major role in the recovery of a rare meteorite in the UK, made possible by dedicated fireball observatories set up as part of the Curtin-led Global Fireball Observatory.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":4307,"featured_media":12470,"template":"","meta":{"_acf_changed":false,"_oasis_is_in_workflow":0,"_oasis_original":0,"_oasis_task_priority":"","_relevanssi_hide_post":"","_relevanssi_hide_content":"","_relevanssi_pin_for_all":"","_relevanssi_pin_keywords":"","_relevanssi_unpin_keywords":"","_relevanssi_related_keywords":"","_relevanssi_related_include_ids":"","_relevanssi_related_exclude_ids":"","_relevanssi_related_no_append":"","_relevanssi_related_not_related":"","_relevanssi_related_posts":"","_relevanssi_noindex_reason":"","wds_primary_category":0,"wds_primary_research-areas":0,"footnotes":""},"categories":[3,4,40],"tags":[1066],"research-areas":[],"class_list":["post-19683","media-release","type-media-release","status-publish","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-campus-and-global-community","category-research","category-technology","tag-sstc"],"acf":{"post_options":{"":null,"additional_content":{"title":"","content":"","image":false},"related_courses":[{"title":"","qualification":"","link":"","description":"","faculty":""}],"credits":{"author":"","photographer":"","media":false},"display_author":true,"banner":{"image":false}},"experts":false},"featured_image":"https:\/\/www.curtin.edu.au\/news\/wp-content\/uploads\/2022\/07\/reszied-for-web-fireball_from_Lincoln_GFO_camera_credit_Sarah_McMullan_UKFN_Global-Fireball-Observatory-1-1000x500.jpg","author_meta":{"first_name":"Lucien","last_name":"Wilkinson","display_name":"Lucien Wilkinson"},"publishpress_future_workflow_manual_trigger":{"enabledWorkflows":[]},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.curtin.edu.au\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media-release\/19683","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.curtin.edu.au\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media-release"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.curtin.edu.au\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/media-release"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.curtin.edu.au\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/4307"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.curtin.edu.au\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media-release\/19683\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.curtin.edu.au\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/12470"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.curtin.edu.au\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=19683"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.curtin.edu.au\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=19683"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.curtin.edu.au\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=19683"},{"taxonomy":"research-areas","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.curtin.edu.au\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/research-areas?post=19683"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}