CAREER: Bridging Minor Planet and Meteor Science in the Era of Big Data

Lowell Observatory, Flagstaff AZ

Investigators

Abstract

Minor planets (also called asteroids) are pristine relics of the ancient Solar System. All meteorites that have fallen to Earth to date are believed to have come from minor planets. These meteorites are our only direct link to the earliest epoch of Solar System formation approximately 4.5 billion years ago. Understanding the connections between meteors and minor planets will help astronomers develop better theories for conditions on the young Earth. The proposed work will deploy a network of video cameras to increase the rate of meteor detection over Arizona, create a database of these meteors to enable new research into their orbits before hitting Earth, automate the search for parent asteroids for these bodies, and develop a tool to retroactively search existing data sets for pre-impact detections of large meteors. The PI will work with staff and students at Northern Arizona University’s Visual Communications department to develop an interactive exhibit that will enable users from the general public to visualize meteor paths and minor planet orbits. The exhibit will be displayed at Lowell Observatory’s Visitor Center and at the Meteor Crater Visitor Center. Undergraduates at NAU and NSF REU students will take part in the work. The research will also have practical implications for discovering and characterizing meteors that might be a threat to Earth. The origin of meteoroids is not well understood, but it must involve several processes: collisions, mass loss due to volatile sublimation, and mass shedding due to rotational spin-up. These processes produce meteor streams, meteoroids traveling on similar paths that produce meteor showers when they impact the Earth. Over 100 meteor showers have been well established, with hundreds more unconfirmed, and the majority have no known parent asteroid or comet. The work will seek to connect meteor showers to their parent bodies. Lowell Observatory presently operates four stations to monitor meteors. Eight new stations will be added under this grant. Additionally, a more powerful database will be developed that will enable investigators to search for relational studies and to investigate lightcurves. This award reflects NSF's statutory mission and has been deemed worthy of support through evaluation using the Foundation's intellectual merit and broader impacts review criteria.