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| title | chunk | source | category | tags | date_saved | instance |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| Meteorite fall | 2/5 | https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Meteorite_fall | reference | science, encyclopedia | 2026-05-05T07:53:37.329679+00:00 | kb-cron |
In April 1959 the meteorite Příbram was the first meteorite whose trajectory was tracked by multiple cameras recording the associated fireball. The Ondřejov Observatory in the Czech Republic captured photos of the fireball using eleven widely spaced cameras. With the help of this stereo recording (through triangulation), Přibram's trajectory could be reconstructed quite accurately, aiding its recovery and also - for the very first time - enabling scientists to trace its pre-impact orbit back to the asteroid belt. Eleven years later, the fireball from the Lost City meteorite, was recorded with four cameras from the Prairie Meteorite Network operated by the Smithsonian Astrophysical Observatory, when it fell in Cherokee County Oklahoma, in January 1970. This was the first time a meteorite was recovered solely on the basis of photographic measurements. In 1977 the meteorite of Innisfree was discovered using photographs taken by the Meteorite Observation and Recovery Program of the National Research Council of Canada. The fall of Benešov was recorded in 1991, however the meteorite was only recovered in 2011 after the strewnfield was recalculated and metal detectors were used to search for small fragments. The meteorite of Ischgl was found by an Austria forest ranger in 1976 and was kept at home by the finder without undergoing any scientific examination until 2008, when it was classified as a meteorite. Upon review of the archived fireball events photographed by the German fireball camera network, it could be determined, in a study published in 2024, that in November 1970 a fireball event observed by 10 different stations was connected to the fall of the later discovered meteorite. Over the last decades fireball networks consisting of dedicated arrays of cameras were put in operation in several countries. As more automated cameras monitor the night sky and track fireballs, the chances of locating meteorites have increased. Statistics for observed falls by decade are listed in the table in this section. It took more than 30 years for the falls of the first 4 meteorites to be recorded by automated devices, the same amount of falls with documented trajectories as in the single year of 2015. For the period since 2020 the number of meteorite falls reported globally each year has increased on average to more than ten per year, up from about six a year in the 1990s. As of December 2025 there are 75 instrumentally observed recovered meteorites, for which also a pre-impact orbit could be determined. Today, there are several networks of whole sky cameras recording space rock from different directions, thus making it easier to calculate the impact sites of meteorites and increasing the probability of actually finding material after a meteor has been observed.
Among the camera networks are:
Cameras for All-Sky Meteor Surveillance European Fireball Network Desert Fireball Network FRIPON
=== Video cameras === Accidental random fireball records documented by video have increased over the past decades and social media now distributes videos so broadly that a much larger share of falls is being captured and documented. The first ever meteor to be filmed by a camera was the Great Daylight Fireball which blazed over the Rocky Mountains in 1972 - however this earth grazer supposedly left earth's atmosphere again, without meteorites impacting the ground. The first meteorite fall to be documented by video cameras by coincidence was Peekskill meteorite in 1992. The bright fireball visible for more than 40 seconds was recorded by 15 chance eyewitnesses' video cameras from different locations. Peekskill back then was only the fourth meteorite whose prior orbit could be calculated based on the reconstructed trajectory of the fall. The orbits for the previous falls of Přibram (1959), Lost City meteorite (1970) and Innisfree (1977) had been determined based on photographs. Peekskill, however, was the first fall documented by motion-picture footage. Video cameras have since become widespread with the rise of surveillance or traffic cameras, ski-resort webcams, dashboard and doorbell cameras and smart phones, which have all been used to capture fireballs in connection with recovered meteorites. Among the most spectacular falls observed by numerous cameras is the Chelyabinsk meteor from February 2013. The fall of the meteorite in Novo Mesto, Slovenia, in February 2020 was captured by dashcams, security cameras and even a camera mounted on a cyclist's helmet. The footage was used by astronomers to triangulate the meteorite's trajectory. The fall of the Charlottetown meteorite in 2024 was the first case, where the actual moment of the impact on the ground was recorded with video including audio. The sound of the meteorite shattering upon impact has been described as similar to the sound of breaking ice.