Fireballs in the sky!
Dr Ellie Sansom and Dr Hadrien Devillepoix lead the Desert Fireball Network (DFN). This network was made up of over 50 autonomous observatories that monitored 3 million square km of the night sky for over a decade. They captured thousands of bright shooting stars (fireballs). From the different station positions, we can determine where these space rocks may have come from in our solar system, and where meteorites may have landed.
We recover meteorites through a combination of manual, drone and machine-learning-assisted fieldwork. The DFN has expanded to become a Global Fireball Observatory (GFO) through worldwide collaboration and partnerships. There are now cameras placed across the globe to observe fireballs.
The DFN is a collaboration with the Curtin Institute of Radio Astronomy (CIRA), and part of the International Centre for Radio Astronomy Research (ICRAR) program for Space Domain Awareness and Planetary Defence.
