Trent University’s Department of Physics & Astronomy has joined the Global Meteor Network (GMN), a consortium of 700 cameras on the lookout for meteors with the installation of a specialized camera on the roof of the Symons campus Science Complex. Every day, hundreds of small interplanetary objects called meteoroids enter the Earth’s atmosphere at speeds above 10 kilometres per second. As they interact with the atmosphere, these objects heat up and emit light, producing meteors.  

Multiple cameras allow for multiple data points

Meteor observations from GMN cameras provide scientists with real-time awareness of Earth’s dynamic space weather environment, including meteor flux—the number and mass of meteoroids entering the atmosphere per hour—and orbits, which are calculated using the collected data. Knowledge of this flux is important for space hazard estimations that help protect instruments and astronauts in low Earth orbit, while knowledge of the orbits themselves allow for the origin of meteor showers, meteors, and space debris to be investigated. The brightest meteors, called fireballs, can yield recoverable meteorites that survive to the ground. In April 2021, a bright fireball lit up the evening skies over Lake Simcoe and deposited some 300 grams of meteorites near Argyle, Ontario. 

GMN cameras made it possible to pinpoint the landfall location and allow for recovery of the meteorites. Meteorites are valuable for researchers to study in detail, often containing material from our Solar System’s early formation, some predating the Earth itself. The parent meteoroid’s orbit was computed with camera data, providing an idea of where it originated before colliding with the Earth.  

Linking citizen scientists to the professional astronomical community

“The GMN is an excellent way for amateur astronomers and citizen scientists to get involved with the professional astronomical community, producing high-impact data – no pun intended!” said Tim Claydon, vice-president of the Durham Region Astronomical Association and science co-op coordinator at Trent University. "The camera, which was installed with the help of Chris Williams and Trent Facilities Management, began taking observations on the night of September 27th." This summer, Tim worked with Drs. Dave Patton and Edward Stokan, professor and lab demonstrator in the Department of Physics & Astronomy respectively to get the project underway, including arranging funding, approvals, assembling the camera and configuring the software. 

The camera system uses a Raspberry Pi 4 and open-source RMS software available publicly on GitHub to record and process camera data. Each morning, more than 250 terabytes of night-sky meteor data and video is uploaded to Western University in London, Ontario, where built-in software reviews for meteor events, characterizing speed, mass, luminosity, and trajectory, before it becomes publicly available for download and analysis.  

Watch each night’s observations from the meteor camera by visiting: https://globalmeteornetwork.org/weblog/CA/CA002F/latest/