A partnership between Unicamp and Brazilian Meteor Observation Network (Bramon) made it possible to install two astronomical monitoring cameras at the Exploratory Science Museum. The objective is to encourage citizen science through projects related to astronomy and scientific communication. In addition to the cameras, which operate at night, meteor recording software is used. The inauguration of the station is part of the programming of Asteroid Day, which will bring to Campinas, on the 29th and 30th of June and 3rd of July, a series of events organized by the City Hall, the Institute of Geosciences (IG) and the Exploratory Science Museum of Unicamp.
Video of the first meteor captured by Unicamp cameras:
Renato Poltronieri, from Bramon, was at the University at the end of May to help install the cameras, which are now part of a network of 134 stations in 19 states. Bramon, created in 2014, proposes meteor monitoring by recording images and data. On the day of installation, there was already a meteor recorded in the sky of Campinas.
Among the Universities that make up the network are Unesp in Bauru and Unimar in Marília. The person responsible for the partnership at Unicamp is Álvaro Crósta, from the Institute of Geosciences, who is guiding scientific initiation work on the topic financed by Fapesp. “We want to develop science, mainly in undergraduate student projects, and also for scientific dissemination. The idea is to introduce the theme to children and teenagers who attend the Unicamp Exploratory Science Museum”, he explains.
The two cameras installed at Unicamp can record meteors from small to giant ones sprites – a plasma discharge of immense rays in the shape of a sea jellyfish that forms at the top of rain clouds and moves towards space. Since the beginning of the network's operation, several space events have been recorded, such as the earthgrazer captured in 2015 in the interior of São Paulo – a type of meteor that reaches the highest layers of the Earth's atmosphere, traveling immense distances. Depending on the size, the angle of approach to Earth and the speed, the object may return to space, like a stone that ricochets when thrown close to the surface of a lake.
As it is an open network, data collected at Unicamp will be shared. According to Renato, there was no meteor monitoring work in Brazil, only observation. “The southern hemisphere is not studied as much as the northern hemisphere. Therefore, Bramon set up cameras to monitor space and discover new meteor showers. Since then, more than 20 have been discovered, all recognized by the International Astronomical Union”, he concludes.
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Listen to Repórter Unicamp about the program Asteroid Day:
