Meeting notes:
A comet is not a meteor, nor a shooting star or asteroid but has an extended atmosphere around a nucleus. A comet or asteroid can be observed by ground telescopes
A meteoroid is an ancient piece of our solar system, too small to be observed or classified as an asteroid. A meteor is a shooting star; a streak in the sky caused by a meteoroid entering our atmosphere more than 70,000 km/h. A meteor shower is from a significant number of meteors, at the same, time entering earths’ orbit through interplanetary dust and debris left behind by a comet. A meteorite is a landed meteor
Out of the 70,000 meteorites seen world-wide & only about 50 have been photographed as a fireball. Meteor camera networks photograph incoming meteors from multiple locations. Capturing these fireballs allows the meteor’s path to be calculated accurately and likely landing point. Not all meteors survive most burn up completely in the atmosphere. A piece of the Arizona meteorite can be seen in Canterbury Museum. From, a freshly recovered meteorite and a calculation of where in the solar system it came from, much can be learnt about our solar system and potential comet impacts
TAS originated from a U3A Group initiated by David Twist! The society officially formed in 2002 and is now permanently based in Fergusion Park using a 14inch telescope. Meteors rarely fall to earth and found. In 1908 New Zealand the first recorded fireball was from a meteorite weighing less than 1kg & in 2004, in broad daylight, a meteorite reportedly landed on a roof. Since these individual sightings, a Fireballs Aotearoa Meteor Camera network was formed by linking observation stations together improving recorded sightings. Latterly newly invented Raspberry Pi technology broadened the scope of meteor tracking by 3-fold. This cheap computer (no bigger than a stack of cards) creates 360-deg. view photos.
The TAS is a part of this network and latterly the newly formed Citizen Meteor Camera Network (the public face of Fireballs Aotearoa). This public network has added many more stations; by 2022 180 stations were80% operational at any time. Hence 90 meteors were recorded during March 2024 alone. There are Network blind spots but as more public (schools and private observatories) join, these have decreased. By stacking images, from the camera network, the number of meteors can now be shown easily. The newly launched Satellite Starlink transposes this data further, using wifi, onto Google maps. Altitude sightings are brought together and shown above maps of New Zealand; meteor orbits and potential landing sites are calculated.
On 23/6/2023 80 Eyewitnesses saw a fireball off the Auckland coast, but the meteorite was lost. On 13/03/24 meteor sighting (from a hot tub!) lasted 6.72 sec. The meteor dropped through 96 to 23.3 km slowing from 50km/sec to 5km/sec and at 1.6km dropped to earth landing in a DOC site in Sth Tekapo. From the network the 0.8 kg meteorite was found only 30 mins after the location was calculated. What an incredible achievement since 1908!
A Network member can buy a Raspberry Pi costs $500 from Central Otago Geology Dept. A TAPO Camera with SD card cost $160-190. Meteorite study shows they are hot and volatile and contain elements e.g nickel & iron but not any unknown alien substances! Although fireballs can explode – 2013 one blew out windows and doors in Russia. Reassuringly, NASSA predicts there are no potential catastrophes from comets/asteroids for next 100 years.
The Earth atmosphere protects Airbourne craft & satellites from meteors; the moon has no protection allowing meteorites to be collected & studied. Currently, Venus, Saturn, Jupiter and Mercury can be seen by naked eye and can be viewed more closely at the TAS observatory. No booking is needed but check before going about cloud clover. Cost is $5 non-members with children free. The public can attend meetings are welcome and free.
U3A Beachside - Papamoa, Mount Maunganui, Te Puke 