Two fireballs over Denmark

1 Fireball 8 April 2019

A slow moving, bright fireball appeared above Denmark on 2019, April 8 at 19h32m31s UT. The event was seen by many casual witnesses in Denmark, Germany, Norway and the northern part of the Netherlands. Unfortunately these reports did not allow to compute a reliable trajectory. Luckily, the meteor was recorded at four different camera stations which allowed a more accurate calculation of the trajectory in the atmosphere and its orbit.

It started at 94 km and ended at 61 km altitude. The radiant position was found to be at R.A. 73.5° and decl. +69.5°, the velocity 17 km/s. The entrance angle of 63° and the end height at 61 km exclude that any meteorite survived the passage through the atmosphere. The orbit does not match with any meteor shower listed in the IAU Meteor Shower list.

q = 0.986 A.U.
e = 0.705
ω = 164.3°
Ω = 18.4°
i = 13.7°

Figure 1 – Image from the camera in Silkeborg, Denmark (N. Sorensen).

Figure 2 – The positions of the 4 cameras of the Danish Fireball Network that captured this fireball, together with the ground projected path of the meteor.

Figure 3 – The meteor height above the ground along the trajectory. Each red dot corresponds to where the track crosses a line of sight in the map above (Figure 2).

Figure 4 – Solar system with the meteoroid orbit. The green part of the orbit is above the ecliptic and red part below.

For more information see: http://www.stjerneskud.info/fireball/event2019-04-08-21-32-31/

2 Fireball 15 April 2019

A very slow moving, bright fireball appeared above Denmark on 2019, April 15 at 00h35m39s UT. The event was recorded at three different camera stations which allowed an accurate calculation of the trajectory in the atmosphere and to obtain the orbit.

It started at 76 km and ended at 22 km altitude. The radiant position was found to be at R.A. 165.8° and decl. +54.3°, the velocity 13 km/s. The steep entrance angle of 80°, the low velocity and the end height at 22 km suggest that a meteorite may have survived the passage through the atmosphere. If this was the case, it must have dropped in the sea. The orbit does not match with any meteor shower listed in the IAU Meteor Shower list.

q = 0.998 A.U.
e = 0.355
ω = 191.4°
Ω = 24.4°
i = 8.0°

Figure 5 – Image from the camera in Kolding, Denmark.

Figure 6 – Image from the camera in Silkeborg, Denmark.

Figure 7 – The positions of the 3 cameras of the Danish Fireball Network that captured this fireball, together with the ground projected path of the meteor.

Figure 8 – The meteor height above the ground along the trajectory. Each red dot corresponds to where the track crosses a line of sight in the map above (Figure 7).

Figure 9 – The variation of the velocity , km/s, during the flight of the fireball (top). The deceleration in km/s/s during the flight of the fireball (bottom).

Figure 10 – The position of the fireball in function of time during its flight (top), the error margins on the measured positions relative to the linear fit (bottom).