Bolides are a special type of meteor with very high brightness. They can mark the fall of meteorites – fragments of asteroids or small bodies orbiting in our Solar System. In Ostrowik, where the North Station of the UW’s Astronomical Observatory is located, a bolide camera has been launched as part of the newly established Skytinel network.
The Astronomical Observatory of the University of Warsaw (AOUW) has two observing stations equipped with telescopes – the North Station in Ostrowik, 40 km from Warsaw, and the South Station at the Las Campanas Observatory in Chile. For the last twenty years, the North Station has been conducting observations of a part of the sky with a camera recording the passage of extraterrestrial matter in the Earth’s atmosphere – meteors and bolides. The research is conducted as part of a nationwide network of observing stations – the Polish Fireball Network (PFN).
Researchers point out that the detection of bolides can mean the fall of meteorites, thanks to which we can find out how our Solar System was formed, or learn about processes occurring in it over billions of years. Meteoritics is a science that deals with the study of meteorites and integrates the scientific community, including astronomers, geologists and planetologists, with the hobbyist community of meteorite prospectors and collectors.
New equipment
Prof. Szymon Kozłowski from the UW’s Astronomical Observatory explains that one way to find meteorites is to use bolide networks, i.e. a set of bolide stations located in an area every few tens or hundreds of kilometres. The stations monitor the sky at night and record passing bolides.
On 26th July, a new bolide camera was launched at the Northern Station in Ostrowik, monitoring the entire observable sky over Ostrowik and within a radius of about 200 km from it. The camera operates as part of the Skytinel bolide network, which was established in April, and the Ostrowik station itself has been given the number SN20 (it is the 20th Skytinel observing station).
“The first detection of a falling body from space at station SN20 was registered already on the first night after its launch, i.e. at 1.30 a.m. on 27th July,” Prof. Szymon Kozłowski said.
The task of the Skytinel network is to carry out detection of falls of extraterrestrial matter, i.e. meteorites, in the area of Poland. Scientists emphasise that twenty-five such sites are known to date.
“The recordings from the cameras can be used for many purposes. It is possible to calculate the trajectory of a body that has entered our atmosphere, its orbit, speed and many other parameters of its flight,” Mateusz Żmija, coordinator of the Skytinel bolide network, said.
The installation of the SN20 bolide station can be seen on Prof. Szymon Kozłowski’s YouTube channel “W Gabinecie Astronoma” in the episode titled “Stacja bolidowa”.
