The Dingle Dell meteorite: A Halloween treat from the Main Belt

• Published in: Meteoritics & planetary science 2018-10, Vol.53 (10), p.2212-2227
• Main Authors: Devillepoix, Hadrien A. R., Sansom, Eleanor K., Bland, Philip A., Towner, Martin C., Cupák, Martin, Howie, Robert M., Jansen‐Sturgeon, Trent, Cox, Morgan A., Hartig, Benjamin A. D., Benedix, Gretchen K., Paxman, Jonathan P.
• Format: Article
• Language: English
• Subjects: Chondrites; Deceleration; Deserts; Ejection; Fireballs; Flora; Jupiter; Meteorites; Meteors & meteorites; Numerical integration; Observatories; Orbital resonances (celestial mechanics); Resonance
• ISSN: 1086-9379; 1945-5100
• DOI: 10.1111/maps.13142

We describe the fall of the Dingle Dell (L/LL 5) meteorite near Morawa in Western Australia on October 31, 2016. The fireball was observed by six observatories of the Desert Fireball Network (DFN), a continental‐scale facility optimized to recover meteorites and calculate their pre‐entry orbits. The 30 cm meteoroid entered at 15.44 km s−1, followed a moderately steep trajectory of 51° to the horizon from 81 km down to 19 km altitude, where the luminous flight ended at a speed of 3.2 km s−1. Deceleration data indicated one large fragment had made it to the ground. The four person search team recovered a 1.15 kg meteorite within 130 m of the predicted fall line, after 8 h of searching, 6 days after the fall. Dingle Dell is the fourth meteorite recovered by the DFN in Australia, but the first before any rain had contaminated the sample. By numerical integration over 1 Ma, we show that Dingle Dell was most likely ejected from the Main Belt by the 3:1 mean motion resonance with Jupiter, with only a marginal chance that it came from the ν6 resonance. This makes the connection of Dingle Dell to the Flora family (currently thought to be the origin of LL chondrites) unlikely.