Star struck: Derek Poulton with his Dobsonian reflector telescope.
Photo by
Rechelle Zammit
Many may remember the visitor that exploded into Murchison over half a century ago.
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The arrival shook the town, from its grounds to its roofs, sent dogs barking, and showered the town with mystery.
At the time, regional residents looked to the skies in wonder before continuing to go about their day, but one Mooroopna man’s intrigue never ceased.
For Derek Poulton, the 1969 Murchison meteorite was more than just a 100kg chunk of space rock disintegrating over the rural town — it was the event that piqued a lifelong interest in meteorite tracking.
“I’m part of two programs now — they’re both global programs,” he said.
“The Global Meteor Network, developed by Denis Vida in Canada — they have meteor cameras right across the world, quite a lot in the UK and New Zealand.
“The other program is the Desert Fireball Network, which comes out of Curtin University — they’re looking to get more cameras in Victoria and NSW. We were offered two of their cameras to deploy somewhere in Victoria.”
The cameras, now stationed at Invergordon and Stanhope, were a small step for developing a meteor network here in Victoria, a large leap for Mr Poulton and his team of confidantes, solidifying themselves as official meteorite trackers.
Over the moon: Derek Poulton with one of his meteorite tracking cameras.
Photo by
Rechelle Zammit
In the two to three years the cameras have been set up, the group members have been on the edge of their seats, hoping to make what is dubbed “the holy grail” of scientific findings.
“If we were able to track a meteorite coming into the Earth’s atmosphere, detect the meteorite trail and go and pick up its fragments ... there’s possibly only about 10 in the world that have done that,” he said.
It hasn’t happened yet, but the group has come close.
A few years ago, a bright fireball to the west of Bendigo was photographed, spurring Monash University’s Andy Tompkin to assemble a team to look for the meteorite in a thorough search.
“We got very excited in Bendigo, we thought we might be the 11th,” he said.
“But no, we didn’t find anything. Quite often they will burn up and there’s nothing to collect, but it’s worth going out and looking.”
Holy grail: The Bendigo fireball shooting across the night sky, recorded over two frames.
Photo by
Derek Poulton
Mr Poulton said there was quite a strong theory that life on Earth could have begun from a meteorite and potentially even seeded life on our planet.
“Some of the meteorites pre-date the formation of our solar system ... there’s all different types of meteorites; the one at Murchison was called a carbonaceous chondrite, which is a very rare type of meteorite that has a particular scientific interest — building blocks of life can be found within that meteorite,” he said.
It’s difficult to wrap one’s head around a rock being older than humanity, the Earth, the sun, the entire solar system, even the dawn of time.
And while meteorites trigger big questions, Mr Poulton’s answer as to why he tracks them is simply down-to-earth.
“I’ve enjoyed making up the meteorite camera and deploying it, seeing the results and sharing that with others,” he said.
“There’s a public site where you can look at all the meteor cameras and the meteor trails that’ve been observed overnight — I enjoy looking at that and seeing what’s observed.
“Mostly, I just enjoy being part of the program with the scientists involved.”
More results, including photographs from Mr Poulton’s cameras, can be accessed via globalmeteornetwork.org.au
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