| Project Detail |
Study on meteoroid impacts seeks to protect space infrastructure
Every year, thousands of new asteroids and comets are discovered. These celestial bodies often disintegrate owing to rotational fission, collisions and cometary activity. These processes generate meteoroids that create meteors or fireballs when entering Earth’s atmosphere. As the number of space missions grows, the threat posed by meteoroid impacts on space-based infrastructure increases. Funded by the Marie Sklodowska-Curie Actions programme, the FLAME project will help safeguard such infrastructure by analysing fireballs detected by modern digital camera networks. The research will focus on estimating impact risks based on meteoroid size. Project results will enhance understanding of meteoroid populations and improve space navigation and development. Results will also be shared via an open web-based service at the Paris Observatory.
With thousands of new asteroids and comets discovered each year, the study addresses the consequences of their disintegration due to rotational fission, collisions, and cometary activity. These processes yield meteoroids, which, upon entering Earths atmosphere, create a range of phenomena called meteors or fireballs (in the case of large impacts). As the number of space missions grows, the threat posed by meteoroid impacts increases. The objective of this research is directly relevant to safeguarding our current and future space-based infrastructure, aligning the project with European science priorities in the realm of cosmic exploration and Earth surveillance.
During this project we will investigate the fireballs detected by modern digital camera networks such as FRIPON, to estimate the risk of impact according to the meteoroid size given an area and a time interval. This endeavor has started during my PhD, working on a small data set, calibrating measurements obtained by the network in Romania, and devising new techniques in analyzing this type of data.
This work will shed light on the size of meteoroids which are able to generate fireballs by measuring the pre-entry mass, and accounting for observational bias. Thus, the results will improve the estimates of mass accreted by the Earth, better assess the space probes risk of colliding with different meteoroid populations, leading to proper protection. FLAME will also include a meteoroid mass forecast assigned to each meteor shower, available as an open web-based service on the Paris Observatory, IMCCE website.
Moreover, the researchs findings will fine-tune interdisciplinary methods like infrasound and seismic analyses to be cross-calibrated from the data obtained in this project, in order to estimate the meteoroid impact energy. Ultimately, by advancing our understanding of the meteoroid population, this study will provide the data for a more effective space navigation and development. |
