Characterization of the Fireballs Detected by All-sky Cameras in Romania

Abstract

Abstract Some of the fields of research that have captured the persistent interest of both scientists and the general public are meteor phenomena. The main goal in the study of meteoroid impacts into Earth’s atmosphere is the recovery of the remnant matter after the ablation in the form of meteorites. This is a complementary approach, yet cheap alternative, to a sample return mission. Meteoroids are messengers since the time of the formation of the solar system due to the fact that they have preserved the same composition. The study of meteorites provides information regarding the chemical composition from which the planets formed. The increasing number of all-sky camera networks in recent years has resulted in a large set of events available for study. Thus, it is very important to use a method that determines whether the meteoroid could produce a meteorite or not. In this paper we study the meteors detected by the FRIPON network in Romania with the use of all-sky cameras. We focus on the events with noticeable deceleration (V f /V 0 < 0.8). We determine the ballistic coefficient α and the mass-loss parameter β for the selected sample. Based on this analysis the events are classified in three categories: (1) meteoroids that are likely to produce meteorites; (2) meteoroids that can possibly produce meteorites; (3) meteoroids that are unlikely to produce meteorites. The entry and final mass are determined for each event. From the recorded fireballs, we identified one possible meteorite dropper, and we analyzed its dynamical evolution.