BRAMS Newsfeed
Radio Meteor Workshop
A small radio meteor workshop was organized online by Cis Verbeeck (ROB). The focus was mostly on determining the activity of a meteor shower and on how to subtract adequately the sporadic background. Topics covered Observability Function (OF), sporadic background estimate, and Activity Level (AL) index. List of participants: Cis Verbeeck, Hiroshi Ogawa, Christian Steyaert, Hervé Lamy, Stijn Calders, Antonio Martinez Picar. The following talks were given:
- Estimation of sporadic background and raw shower meteor rates by the BRAMS team by Stijn Calders
- Observability Function by Cis Verbeeck
- Inverse method to estimate real shower rates, sporadic rates and Observability Function by Chris Steyaert
- Activity Level and radio ZHR by Hiroshi Ogawa
Talk "BRAMS, la symphonie des météores" given at URLab during the SmartMonday event on 10 May
This talk was given by H. Lamy in French and was recorded. SmartMonday 10 May 2021 Direct Youtube link of the recording
Fireball above Belgium last night
A very nice fireball passed over Belgium on 22 April at around 22H08 UT (a bit after midnight local time). The speed (~ 48 km/s) and direction are consistent with a Lyrid meteor. It was visually observed at altitudes between approximately 102 and 84 km. The speed was too large to expect any meteorite on the ground. It was captured by the new AllSky7 camera that we have recently installed in Humain. See the HD video below (Credit: AllSky7)
It was also detected by the FRIPON network which provided the trajectory. The fireball passed nearly at the vertical of our transmitter in Dourbes. Below the image from our FRIPON camera located in Brussels and the visible trajectory as reconstructed from FRIPON data.
It was also detected by all BRAMS stations creating a very strong overdense meteor echo saturating several receiving stations. Below are examples of data recorded at Humain, Genk and our recent new station at Halle de Han in Tintigny.
Boxes sent to 3 test schools in the frame of MOMSTER
Yesterday we packed and sent all the material of the MOMSTER kits for 3 test schools (2 in Flanders, 1 in Wallonia). We look forward to their feedback and observations.
From STEM to STEAM : the place of art in sciences
When you mingle “STEM” disciplines (Science, Technology, Engineering and Mathematics) with art, you obtain a STEAM project, such as, e.g. the MOMSTER project. MOMSTER has recently launched an art and design contest, open to students of secondary schools from every year and orientation. Ideal to stay busy during the Easter break. The mission consists in creating an artwork and/or a sketch on the theme of meteors and/or the radio detection of meteors. The winning project will be used to decorate the MOMSTER boxes to transport the material to schools Deadline of the contest: 2 May 2021. More details (FR) : Concours scientifique et artistique pour les adolescents More details (NL): Wetenschap- en kunstwedstrijd voor tieners
New BRAMS station at the Planetarium in Brussels
Following our collaboration with the Planetarium in the frame of the MOMSTER project, we have installed a new BRAMS station at the Planetarium on April 9. This is the 37th active BRAMS station in total.
Examples of spectrograms recorded in the first few hours are shown below:
In the future, plans are to show the data live to the public and provide some educational material about meteors, their radio detection and BRAMS.
PhD position
The website is currently undergoing a rejuvenation. Many sections will be updated and this news section will become more dynamic. Let’s start first with some excellent news: we are hiring a PhD student for 4 years to work on BRAMS data. The details of the application procedure can be found here.