Speakers
Description
Since 2005, the AMS (American Meteor Society) has operated an online fireball program that to date has logged over 280,000 witness reports and more than 35,000 confirmed fireball events. The AMS online fireball report form was specifically designed for use by people with no astronomy experience who witnessed a fireball, a bolide or a suspected similar phenomenon. In 2013 the AMS extended the program with the IMO (International Meteor Organization) and with members help, the online fireball report form was translated into more than 32 languages. The application not only allows the witnesses to share the details of their sightings (location, direction, duration, etc.) but also to upload photos and/or videos of the events. These media are often used to overcome the lack of precision of the witness data and their inability to determine the velocity of the fireball events. They are also tremendous assets for meteorite recovery when no meteor camera network caught the event. The AMS Fireball program has documented numerous meteorite falls and helped lead to over 15 meteorite recoveries in the United States. In 2018, the program helped produce the ground track used for the recovery of a meteorite in Botswana from the asteroid 2018 LA. The AMS Fireball Program is now being further extended with the ALLSKY7 multi-camera device and network. These organizations, websites and devices along with a world-wide community provide a technical ecosystem designed for and dedicated to fireball study and meteorite recovery.
