Looking skywards for job that rocks
Planetary scientists are monitoring 32 cameras that have been set up in the WA bush to track and record meteorites, space debris and anything else entering Earth's atmosphere.
As with the meteorite that was seen all over Perth yesterday, the Desert Fireball Network team will attempt to retrieve remnants of any meteorites believed to have survived the journey to Earth.
Professor Phil Bland, director of the Curtin University project, said the network was the only meteorite research project in the world to focus on the desert as a place to spot and find meteorites.
"Great nights, great skies and if something lands, you've not vegetation around, so it's lot easier to pick something up, which is the goal," he said.
"After going through the phase of building it up and doing a lot of field work to get it out there, we're finally at the point now where we can start looking at the data. What's exciting now is that we should be going out and looking for meteorites."
Professor Bland said the fireball, which can be a variety of colours including green or a bright white light, from a meteorite entering Earth's atmosphere almost always goes out at high altitude of about 20km.
Yesterday, scientists from the Fireballs in the Sky project went out to analyse videos of the meteorite from where they were filmed in Scarborough and the Swan Valley.
They hope to plot the meteorite's trajectory with that information.
Meteorite sightings can be reported on the Fireballs in the Sky smartphone app.
