Speaker
Description
Every day, geostationary weather satellites record millions of lightning flashes. Hidden among them are bolides: meteoroids and small asteroids entering the atmosphere, seen continuously over whole hemispheres by day and night, whatever the weather. GOES-GLM has watched the Americas since 2017, and since 2024 the Lightning Imager on Meteosat Third Generation has opened the same window over Europe, Africa and the Atlantic. Yet these instruments were built for thunderstorms, not fireballs, and they see bolides through a narrow slit of the spectrum. How far can we trust what they record? We combine the European and American imagers with the US Government fireball record to ask what lightning sensors can tell us about incoming impactors: how bright, how fast, and how often. We present what the two satellites agree on and where they disagree, and what a European bolide record could bring to planetary defence.