Murrili meteorite's fall and recovery from Kati Thanda

TL;DR

This paper reports the observation, prediction, and recovery of the Murrili meteorite in Kati Thanda, demonstrating the Desert Fireball Network's capabilities in tracking and retrieving meteorites with high precision.

Contribution

It presents the first recovered observed fall by the digital Desert Fireball Network, validating its effectiveness in meteorite tracking and recovery.

Findings

Meteorite fall predicted with high accuracy

Successful recovery from muddy lake environment

Validation of DFN's automated data reduction pipeline

Abstract

On the 27th of November 2015, at 10:43:45.526 UTC, a fireball was observed across South Australia by ten Desert Fireball Network observatories lasting 6.1 s. A $\sim37$ kg meteoroid entered the atmosphere with a speed of 13.68$\pm0.09\,\mbox{km s}^{-1}$ and was observed ablating from a height of 85 km down to 18 km, having slowed to 3.28$\pm0.21 \,\mbox{km s}^{-1}$. Despite the relatively steep 68.5$^\circ$ trajectory, strong atmospheric winds significantly influenced the darkfight phase and the predicted fall line, but the analysis put the fall site in the centre of Kati Thanda - Lake Eyre South. Kati Thanda has metres-deep mud under its salt-encrusted surface. Reconnaissance of the area where the meteorite landed from a low flying aircraft revealed a 60 cm circular feature in the muddy lake, less than 50 m from the predicted fall line. After a short search, which again employed light aircraft, the meteorite was recovered on the 31st December 2015 from a depth of 42 cm. Murrili is the first recovered observed fall by the digital Desert Fireball Network (DFN). In addition to its scientific value, connecting composition to solar system context via orbital data, the recover demonstrates and validates the capabilities of the DFN, with its next generation remote observatories and automated data reduction pipeline.