Meteorite Fireball Seen in Turkey As Turkish Scientist Warns Trackers Whether It Reaches To Ground

Every once in a while, meteorites hit the ground in different places across the globe.

The latest one was visible from Turkey’s several cities on May 27, including Bingol, Sivas, Trabzon, Rize and Artvin.

Security cameras recorded the footages of a large fireball crashing to Earth.

Following the event, some citizens in Duzkoy district of Trabzon set to work to find the remnants of the meteorite, Ihlas News Agency reported.

“The light appeared in the sky like fire. We were surprised. I have not seen such a thing until this time. We do not know where it fell, we wonder.” Ahmet Yilmaz, one of the trackers said.

Dr. Mehmet Yesiltas from the Faculty of Aeronautics and Astronautics, Kirklareli University told OrbitInside.com of the object.

Location of the object is unknown

When asked about the point of fall of the meteorite, Dr. Yesiltas said: “The short answer is no one knows at the moment. Whether the meteor seen in the sky produced meteorites or not is currently not known. Some meteors make it to the ground and produce meteorites, while others are vaporized in the air.”

Pointing out the searches on the ground in several cities by some people, he underlined that they firstly need to make sure pieces of the meteor reached to the ground as meteorites.

Normally, meteor tracking cameras would collect useful images of such events, and the images help determine a potential fall location, however it is unknown if there is any camera in that region.

Regarding this matter, he said: “Reportedly, there is a meteor tracking system in Turkey, however such tracking system is highly questionable. For instance, no one knows where that tracking system is. We don’t know if there is any active station or which part of the sky is covered. Additionally, there is no scientific publication regarding the tracking system.”

Current research interests of Dr. Yesiltas are characterization of organics and minerals in meteorites as well as understanding post-accretionary processes on asteroids and planets.

Currently no plans for searching

In 2015, people in Bingol found the pieces of meteorite in Saricicek village.

Villagers sold them and earned 140,000 liras (about 20,000 dollars) which was later confirmed that it was broke away from the asteroid Vesta 22 million years ago.

“We currently have no plans to conduct a search in the area simply because there is no scientific evidence that suggests the pieces of the meteor reached to the ground as meteorites. We are currently investigating a set of data to determine this.” the Turkish scientist told OrbitInside, saying if they obtain any signature of a meteorite event, they will form a search party and perform a systematic search.

Meteorites are highly valuable samples because they provide scientists a lot of information about the solar system as well as space in general.

NASA describes a meteorite when a meteoroid survives a trip through the atmosphere and hits the ground.

Most of the aforementioned objects come from asteroid belt, located between Jupiter and Mars.

As for the importance of meteorites, he gave chondrites, a class of meteorites and samples of primitive asteroids for example, adding scientific investigations of chondrites and their chemical content give a lot of information about their parent asteroids, thermal and aqueous alteration processes, and impact histories.

“We have learned a lot about the Moon through the studies of rocks and dust brought to Earth through Apollo missions,” he said.

Situation of meteoritics in Turkey

The first Antarctic meteorites of Turkey were collected in 2019 from Antarctica and have been brought to Turkey for scientific investigations. In 2020, more than 10,000 micrometeorites were also collected from Antarctica and brought to Turkey.

“Kirklareli University is able to classify meteorites and register them via the International Meteorite Database MetBull, and has been designated as the repository and curator of both Antarctic meteorites and micrometeorites by The Meteoritical Society, Dr. Mehmet Yesiltas said in the statement.

For the first time in Turkey, a workshop dedicated to the study of meteorites called 1st Turkish Meteorite Workshop was held in 2019, and the 2nd workshop will be held on 19-20 October 2020.

Gömüce is a meteorite found in 2018 in Antalya. It was investigated at Canakkale Onsekiz Mart University and registered with the Metbull database.

Additionally, Turkish Meteorite Database was established for the purpose of providing meteorite samples to scientists for experimental investigations.

“These activities have been significantly promoting the field of meteoritics in Turkey,” he added.