That a rock from space does not disintegrate when it reaches the Earth’s atmosphere is an unusual phenomenon, but finding the meteorite intact or its fragments – with the invaluable information they contain – already borders on the absolutely improbable: for example, in France the rate of these findings stand at one per decade!
To try to remedy this deficit, scientists from the neighboring country have launched the FRIPON network, the acronym in English for the Network for the Recovery of Bolides and Interplanetary Observation. Formed, at the moment, by 68 cameras , it is a unique initiative in the world that aims to “hunt” every piece of asteroid, comet or planet that lands on French soil. These cameras – the researchers predict that there will be 100 before the end of the year – have a fisheye lens and are homogeneously installed, between 50 and 100 kilometers away , in museums, astronomical observatories, universities or scientific culture associations.
“FRIPON makes it possible to detect objects in real time from numerous angles, as well as to calculate their trajectories, their speed and their point of impact with an accuracy of hundreds of meters, ” explained François Colas, project manager at the Paris Observatory.
The cameras are all interconnected and send their alert messages to a central computer. When two or more of them register the fall of a celestial bolide, the scientists assigned to the network receive a message by e-mail describing where it has been seen and where it has been able to land . The plan is that in the next few years a battalion of volunteers will be formed to “comb” the landing zones.
This surveillance seeks to establish the nature of the extraterrestrial matter that reaches Earth and to delve into the origin and evolution of the planets of the Solar System .
Photo: camera of the FRIPON network in the Pyrenees.
