# A Virtual Observatory (VO) Event model for the optical detection of meteors and transient luminous events

Chiara Marmo, Matthieu Garnung, Pierre Le Sidaner, Baptiste Cecconi, Sebastien Celestin, Detlef Koschny

► To cite this version:

Chiara Marmo, Matthieu Garnung, Pierre Le Sidaner, Baptiste Cecconi, Sebastien Celestin, et al. A Virtual Observatory (VO) Event model for the optical detection of meteors and transient luminous events. European Planetary Science Congress 2018, Sep 2018, Berlin, Germany. 18 pp. insu-03565617

HAL Id: insu-03565617

https://insu.hal.science/insu-03565617

Submitted on 11 Feb 2022

HAL is a multi-disciplinary open access
archive for the deposit and dissemination of sci-
entific research documents, whether they are pub-
lished or not. The documents may come from
teaching and research institutions in France or
abroad, or from public or private research centers.

L'archive ouverte pluridisciplinaire HAL, est
destinée au dépôt et à la diffusion de documents
scientifiques de niveau recherche, publiés ou non,
émanant des établissements d'enseignement et de
recherche français ou étrangers, des laboratoires
publics ou privés.

<figure><img src="image_1.png" /></figure>

Distributed under a Creative Commons Attribution 4.0 International License
# A Virtual Observatory (VO) Event model for the optical detection of meteors and transient luminous events

C. Marmo (1), M. Garnung (2), P. Le Sidaner (3), B. Cecconi (4), S. Celestin (2), D. Koschny (5)(6)

(1) GEOPS, Univ. Paris-Sud, CNRS, Univ. Paris-Saclay, Orsay, France, (chiara.marmo@u-psud.fr), (2) LPC2E, University of Orleans, CNRS, Orleans, France, (3) DIO, Observatoire de Paris, PSL Research University, CNRS, Paris, France, (4) LESIA, Observatoire de Paris, Université PSL, CNRS, Sorbonne Université, Univ. Paris Diderot, Sorbonne Paris Cité, Meudon, France, (5) ESA/ESTEC, Noordwijk, The Netherlands, (6) Chair of Astronautics, TU Munich, Garching, Germany.

## Abstract

Optical counterparts of atmospheric transient events are subject of observation and investigation of a growing community. Professional as well as amateur observation networks are established in Europe and abroad to collect data important not only for the scientific investigation of some physical processes but also to assess their possible impacts on Earth's environment. We propose here an implementation of the Virtual Observatory Event standard to the domain of meteors and Transient Luminous Events (TLEs). A well established standard for real-time alert on those domains will facilitate coordination between networks and simplify the extraction of critical information. This will result in improved collaboration between the amateur community and agencies (e.g. the ESA Fireball Database, or the CNES TARANIS mission).

## 1. Introduction

Atmospheric optical transient events are observed and analyzed for space weather forecasting or for scientific research in an increasingly systematic way. This abstract focuses on meteors and Transient Luminous Events (TLEs): the first ones are linked to sky surveillance activities because of damages produced by possible collisions as for artificial space debris, the second are classified as ionospheric disturbances then belonging to the domain of space weather. They have often been subject of paired optical observation campaigns, as their monitoring benefits from continuous sky surveillance and similar hardware installations. Data provided by professional and amateur observers need to be compared, merged and archived. A well defined standard describing observation metadata is then necessary in order to efficiently process those data and enable real-time updates.

## 2. VOEvents for atmospheric surveillance

VOEvent<fnref n="1" />,<fnref n="2" /> is a standardized protocol developed to report observations of astronomical events. It has been officially adopted by the International Virtual Observatory Alliance (IVOA) in 2006. A VO-Event alert has a generic structure defined by the standard tags:<who>, <how>, <what>, <why>, <wherewhen>. The VOEvent system is already used by several large-scale projects such as the Gamma-Ray Coordinate System (GCN), the Large Synoptic Survey Telescope (LSST), the European Low Frequency Array (LOFAR), or the Solar Dynamic Observatory (SDO). In the framework of the Planetary Space Weather Service (PSWS) of the Europlanet-H2020 Research Infrastructure (EPN2020RI) project [3], we propose to use VOEvent for atmospheric observations like meteors and TLEs.

### 2.1. Meteors

Several camera networks already exist in Europe and around the world, aiming to detect and triangulate shooting stars, compute the trajectory of the possible meteorite and constrain the orbital properties of the meteoroid. Professional and amateur networks (see among others [9], [4], [5], [8]) working together will allow Europe to be completely independent in obtaining awareness about Earth space environment and existing risks connected to atmospheric reentries. European Space Situational Awareness national programs would benefit from having a common and standard framework for sharing information on meteor and fireball detections, and their contribution to the ESA Fireball

<footnote n="1">¹http://www.ivoa.net/documents/VOEventTransport/20170320/REC-VTP-2.0-20170320.html</footnote>

<footnote n="2">²http://www.ivoa.net/documents/VOEvent/20110711/REC-VOEvent-2.0.pdf</footnote>
ball Information System<fnref n="3" /> would become more effi-
cient. A Virtual Meteor Observatory initiative has al-
ready come alive in a European context [7] [2], ending
up in the adoption of an XML-based communication
format. Its connection to VOEvent standard will guar-
antee its sustainability in a larger and well documented
context.

## 2.2. TLEs

Transient Luminous Events (TLEs) are large-scale op-
tical events occurring in the upper-atmosphere from
the top of thunderclouds up to the ionosphere. TLEs
may have important effects in local, regional, and
global scales of the atmosphere, but many features of
TLEs are not fully understood yet. TARANIS (Tool
for the Analysis of RAdiations from lightNings
and Sprites) is a CNES satellite project dedicated to the
study of impulsive transfers of energy between the
Earth atmosphere and the space environment<fnref n="4" />. The
TARANIS microsatellite will fly over thousands of
TLEs for at least two years. Its scientific instruments
will be capable of detecting these events and recording
their luminous and radiative signatures, as well as the
electromagnetic perturbations they set off in Earth's
upper atmosphere. Coupling TLEs observation to the
already existent meteor detection networks, will allow
the observation of TLEs over unprecedented space and
time scales [6], strongly increasing the probability of
joint detection and hence the scientific return of space
missions such as TARANIS and ASIM (ESA).

3. Summary and Perspectives

In the framework of the Europlanet-H2020 Research
Infrastructure (EPN2020RI) project, we propose to
use the VOEvent standard for the surveillance of tran-
sient atmospheric events like meteors and TLEs. We
have validated the proposed syntax<fnref n="5" />,<fnref n="6" /> in the EPN2020
PSWS infrastructure.

The VOEvent syntax will be implemented in the
meteor and TLE detection software FreeTure [1], and
we will provide support for amateur and professional
networks willing to adopt the VOEvent scheme.

Acknowledgements

This work benefits from support of
VESPA/Europlanet. The Europlanet 2020 Re-
search Infrastructure is funded by the European Union
under the Horizon 2020 research and innovation
program, grant agreement N.654208. This work
is supported by the French Space Agency (CNES)
through the satellite mission TARANIS.

References

[1] Audureau, Y., Marmo, C., Bouley, S., Kwon, M.-K., Colas, F., Vaubaillon, J., Birlan, M., Zanda, B., Vernazza, P., Caminade, S. and Gattacceca, J.: FreeTure: A Free software to capTure meteors for FRIPON, IMC, pp 39-41, 2014.

[2] Barentsen, G., Arlt, R., Koschny, D., Atreya, P., Flohrer, J., Jopek, T., Knofel, A., Koten, P., McAuliffe, J., Oberst, J., Toth, J., Vaubaillon, J., Weryk, R., Wisniewski, M. and Zoladek, P.: The VMO file format. I. Reduced camera meteor and orbit data, Journal of the IMO, Vol. 38, pp. 10-24, 2010.

[3] Cecconi, B., Le Sidaner, P., André, N., Marmo, C. and Rasetti, S.: VOEvent for Solar and Planetary Sciences, EPSC, Vol. 11, id. EPSC2017-908, 2017.

[4] Colas, F., Zanda, B., Bouley, S., Vaubaillon, J., Marmo, C., Audureau, Y., Kwon, M. K., Rault, J. L., Caminade, S., Vernazza, P., Gattacceca, J., Birlan, M., Maquet, L., Egal, A., Rotaru, M., Gruson-Daniel, Y., Birnbaum, C., Cochard, F., Thizy, O.: FRIPON, the French fireball network, EPSC, Vol. 10, id. EPSC2015-800, 2015.

[5] Gardiol, D., Cellino, A., and Di Martino, M.: PRISMA, Italian network for meteors and atmospheric studies, IMC, pp. 76–79, 2016.

[6] Garnung, M. B., and Celestin, S.: Detecting TLEs using a massive all-sky camera network, AGU Fall Meeting, New Orleans, LA, USA, id. AE23A-2469, 2017.

[7] Koschny, D., Mc Auliffe, J. and Barentsen, G.: The IMO Virtual Meteor Observatory (VMO): Architectural Design, Earth, Moon, and Planets, Vol. 102, pp. 247-252, 2008. doi:10.1007/s11038-007-9216-9

[8] Jouin, S., Gulon, T., Brunet, J. and Leroy, A.: Using BOAM to post meteor data from UFOAnalyzer into the Virtual Meteor Observatory, IMC, pp 125-126, 2013.

[9] Oberst, J., Molau, S., Heinlein, D., Gritzner, C., Schindler, M., Spurny, P., Ceplecha, Z., Rendtel, Betlem, H.: The “European Fireball Network”: Current status and future prospects, Meteoritics and Planetary Science, Vol. 33, 1998. doi:10.1111/j.1945-5100.1998.tb01606.x

<footnote n="3">³http://neo.ssa.esa.int/search-for-fireballs</footnote>

<footnote n="4">⁴https://taranis.cnes.fr/en</footnote>

<footnote n="5">⁵https://gist.github.com/cmarmo/de5c0d5332444385ac0d4afc9a5dd92e</footnote>

<footnote n="6">⁶https://gist.github.com/MatthieuGarnung/
0a0386e9eeb0bd44f544ee4dfb79b4e7</footnote>