FRIPON network: watching the skies

Mounted at the highest point of ESA’s ESTEC technical centre in the Netherlands, a fisheye camera keeps a constant watch on the sky, looking out for bright fireballs – very bright meteors burning up in the atmosphere.

This is one of a network of more than a hundred specially-designed cameras stretching across Europe, called the Fireball Recovery and Planetary Inter Observation Network, FRIPON. This network gives scientists the ability to determine the trajectory of fireballs and calculate where they fall to guide recovery of any surviving debris.

To learn more about the expanding FRIPON network – and visit ESTEC’s neighbouring FRIPON camera at the Cyclops Observatory – watch this video, originally created as part of ESA’s joint, live webcast with ESO for Asteroid Day 2018.