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News about Meteors, Fireballs and Meteorites
In this section you will find news about current events concerning the subjects meteors and meteorites. To this you will get first facts and adapted links. You can always be up-to-date, if you subscribe to our RSS feed. For this purpose please push the button here:
Current news
- Meteorite fall event across the Karawanken Mountains -
The great fire meteor of April 9, 2009 across Austria (see Newsletter of April 9, 2009) remained hidden from most people. Only a few eye witnesses were able to observe the spectacle in the sky. Those, which had only noticed the event in an acoustic way, were more numerous. Especially in the Austrian province of Carinthia people were suddenly woken up by this event. Fortunately even the European Fireball Network barely succeeded in documentation of the event despite a closed cloud cover and the resultant poor observing conditions. Very clear measurements could be recorded by seismic stations in Austria, Slovenia, Italy and Germany.
Examinations and investigations of the detonating meteor, which evaluate and document especially subjective witness, were promptly initiated by the ERFM team led by Thomas Grau. In early May all the facts about the meteor event were collected and gathered directly on observation locations of the witnesses. In the consequences of his investigations Grau arrived quite fast at the conclusion that a meteorite fall was very probably occuring across the mountain ridges of the Karawanken in the border area between Austria and Slovenia. Unfortunately at first Grau could find only very few witnesses in Slovenia which could make helpful comments regarding the fall event.
After more than one week of sustained field work in the mountains near the Karawanken Tunnel new facts by Slovenian witnesses reports could improve significantly the results of investigations. After the publication of an article about the activities of the ERFM and particularly about the current examinations by Thomas Grau in the local press (zurnal 19/09 16.05.2009) some new aspects opened up. All at once even the eye and ear witnesses from the Slovenian Jesenice were within reach which had observed the event from the immediate vicinity.
Then on Monday the 18th May 2009 the ERFM could secure the first meteorite of that real fall event for the scientific community. Inspired by the article about the examinations on this meteorite event by the ERFM a local married couple, which was coming across an unusual stone during a walk, got in touch with Grau to let examine their find. The specimen of approximately 2.4 kilograms, which was found near to the Slovenian locality of Jesenice, was actually a meteorite, more precisely a ordinary chondrite, which broke up strongly during its impaction. The meteorite punched through snow and soil, and ultimately was stopped only by the rocky underground. Currently the analyses of the meteorite´s material are in progress at several European institutions. The find will be introduced to the public in Ljubliana at the Museum of Natural History in autumn 2009.
The figure is showing the impaction hole after the safekeeping of the fragments.
Some links to German-language websites regarding the events: -> http://www.jgr-apolda.eu/index.php?topic=3690.0 -> http://kaernten.orf.at/stories/354251/
- A detonating meteor across the German-Polish border? -
In the dawn of the late evening of Friday, May 29, 2009 a large meteor, which was coming from south, passed along the German-Polish border. Some eyewitnesses from the German Federal state Brandenburg observed the appearance of the fireball around 22:36 CEST in the eastern direction. After only few seconds the object broke up into several fragments. Two large pieces were observed in front as light spots and a debrital cloud at third position. Later some witnesses also supposed the notice of a deep bang.
Fortunately three automatic cameras deeply on the horizon recorded the fireball. First it succeeded by a German weather observation camera in Vechta (Lower Saxony) to track the meteor more than 5 seconds. Also a Danish meteor camera in Copenhagen could record the event in a photographic way. Likewise a radiometer measurement in the Czech Republic succeeded. All three records confirmed the meteor at the time 22h 35m 58s CEST. However the detonation of the fireball could not be measured empirically and consequently not be verified. A new case of a meteorite fall event in Germany seems rather improbable, but however we cannot exclude this eventuality at present. The investigations of the ERFM are still running in this regard.
Some links to German-language websites regarding the events: -> www.meteoros.de/php/viewtopic.php?t=6864 -> www.jgr-apolda.eu/index.php?topic=3839.0
- Detonating Meteor across Austria -
On April 09, 2009 around 3:00 am CEST a bright detonating fireball with follwong detonation sound across Austria was observed by some witnesses. The ERFM is now looking for further people who observed this phenomenon. More information at the ERFM press announcement (only in German) -> Link -> Link to our fireball report form - Firemeteor across the Baltic Sea - first meteorites found! -
We are proud to announce a news discovered meteorrite fall The potential meteorite fall after the appearance of the bright fire meteor across the Baltic Sea on January 17, 2009 is no longer described as "potential". After investigations made by our staff Member Thomas Grau in the last weeks we are proud to announce now the recovery of the first samples of this truly new meteorite fall from Denmark. The base of this success was the examination of hundreds of witness reports, which were achieved by personal interviews and analyses of videos records. So Thomas Grau could localise the potential strewnfield. As an additional satisfaction he was finding exactly that type of meteorite material wich he could predict from the conclusions of his examinations. As far as we know it is a carbonaceous chondrite. Further analyses will show more details of classification. We will add some new details about the circumstances of the fall and find as soon as possible. First information from the Geological Museum in Copenhagen you can find here: Link
- Detonating Firemeteor across the Baltic Sea –
On January 17, 2009 around 20:08 (CET) a large detonating meteor was observed across the Baltic Sea. There were even reports from Switzerland, where also a second fireball was oberved around 20:37 (CET). Now there is speculation about, wether the meteoroid was broken up into several pieces and then is fallen piece by piece into the atmosphere. Or is there a cluster of meteoroids, which our Earth was passing? At present however there are many observations of large meteor evets in many countries around the world.
Who can give particulars about this event, then please file a fireball report to us.. Further information to the event you wil find here (in German and Svedish) http://www.jgr-apolda.eu/index.php?topic=3366.0 http://www.meteoros.de/php/viewtopic.php?t=6633 http://www.dlr.de/pf/desktopdefault.aspx/tabid-623/1043_read-15404/ http://.sydsvenskan.se/skane/article409052/Meteoritens-bana-kartlagd.html | ||||
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ERFM - Newsletter
