The world's meteorite collections contain a very rich picture of what the early Solar System would have been made of, however the lack of spatial context with respect to their parent population for these samples is an issue. The asteroid population is equally as rich in surface mineralogies, and mapping these two populations (meteorites and asteroids) together is a major challenge for planetary science. Directly probing asteroids achieves this at a high cost. Observing meteorite falls and calculating their pre-atmospheric orbit on the other hand, is a cheaper way to approach the problem. The Global Fireball Observatory (GFO) collaboration was established in 2017 and brings together multiple institutions (from Australia, USA, Canada, Morocco, Saudi Arabia, the UK, and Argentina) to maximise the area for fireball observation time and therefore meteorite recoveries. The members have a choice to operate independently, but they can also choose to work in a fully collaborative manner with other GFO partners. This efficient approach leverages the experience gained from the Desert Fireball Network (DFN) pathfinder project in Australia. The state-of-the art technology (DFN camera systems and data reduction) and experience of the support teams is shared between all partners, freeing up time for science investigations and meteorite searching. With all networks combined together, the GFO collaboration already covers 0.6% of the Earth's surface for meteorite recovery as of mid-2019, and aims to reach 2% in the early 2020s. We estimate that after 5 years of operation, the GFO will have observed a fireball from virtually every meteorite type. This combined effort will bring new, fresh, extra-terrestrial material to the labs, yielding new insights about the formation of the Solar System.

中文翻译：

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全球火球天文台

世界上的陨石收藏包含了关于早期太阳系构成的非常丰富的图片，但是这些样本缺乏与它们的母体种群相关的空间背景是一个问题。小行星族群的表面矿物学同样丰富，将这两个族群（陨石和小行星）绘制在一起是行星科学的一项重大挑战。直接探测小行星以高成本实现这一目标。另一方面，观察陨石坠落并计算它们在大气层前的轨道，是解决这个问题的更便宜的方法。全球火球天文台 (GFO) 合作成立于 2017 年，汇集了多个机构（来自澳大利亚、美国、加拿大、摩洛哥、沙特阿拉伯、英国、和阿根廷）以最大限度地扩大火球观测时间的面积，从而最大限度地回收陨石。成员可以选择独立运作，但他们也可以选择与其他 GFO 合作伙伴以完全协作的方式工作。这种有效的方法利用了从澳大利亚沙漠火球网络 (DFN) 探路者项目中获得的经验。支持团队的最先进技术（DFN 相机系统和数据缩减）和经验在所有合作伙伴之间共享，从而为科学调查和陨石搜索腾出时间。将所有网络结合在一起，截至 2019 年中期，GFO 合作已经覆盖了地球表面 0.6% 的陨石回收率，并计划在 2020 年代初达到 2%。我们估计，在运行 5 年后，GFO 将观察到几乎所有陨石类型的火球。这种联合努力将为实验室带来新的、新鲜的、外星材料，产生关于太阳系形成的新见解。