DN231223_03 - Saudi_border - "Raja"

This fireball appeared on the OMMP network on Dec 23, 2023 at 17:28:53 (UTC). The fall site has been scouted and searched. A meteorite associated with this event has been found on Feb 11, 2024. It has been named "Raja". 2 fragments were recovered (total mass 29.6 g). The largest mass (26.0 g) was found at (lat=20.395683, long=55.298757). It has been classified as "EH".

2024-01-04: Hadrien

That one started in Saudi, but finished in Oman. A meteorite smuggler :) Unfortunately the end of the fireball happened in the gaps between pictures.

DFNEXT042 has a video record, which might save the day, I need to download calibration frames for it, however I can’t access the camera.

2024-01-23: Hadrien

I re-processed the video, and found a mistake that was preventing us from getting a nice dynamical fit. We now have a nice fit! Nominal value at last observed point is 210 grams (assuming a spherical shape @3500 kg/m3 density), which ablates down to 160g when it goes into darkflight. Annoyingly, that particular scenario puts it in a patch of sand dunes. But we tend to overestimate masses a bit, and a real meteorite would have more drag than a sphere, so I reckon the area to search is mostly North of that sand dune, in the interdune area (see attached KML). If the area attached yields nothing, then working your way towards the 5g end to the North would probably be the way to go, or attempting the dunes area, depending on the situation.

I found no evidence of fragmentation in the data, but we can’t exclude that the meteoroid broke up in smaller pieces.

The wind models mostly agree with each other, at the 5g end there is only a difference of ~130m laterally, which is pretty good.

2024-02-11: Anna

Found two meteorites in the target area, which look nice and fresh. And they were again laying very close to the line between the different masses. We will of course have to confirm the freshness by gamma spectroscopy.

Data reduction from run trajectory_auto_20260225

Trajectory

Download KMZ Download trajectory table

	beginning	end
height	69755 m	25892 m
speed	13078 ± 59 m/s	4770 m/s
mass (EKS model)	2.16 ± 0.34 kg	0.27 ± 0.06 kg

datetime (UTC)	2023-12-23T17:28:53
duration	4.7 s
slope	59°
best convergence angle	86°
Closest viewpoint to end	49 km
# cams astrometry	5
# cams timing	5
# datapoints	208
direction	South-East

Orbit

Orbital parameters

orbit type	Heliocentric
semi-major axis	1.693 ± 0.019 AU
eccentricity	0.424 ± 0.007
inclination	7.19 ± 0.07 °
argument of periapsis	193.23 ± 0.1 °
longitude of ascending node	271.33 ± 0.0 °
Tisserand criterion ♃	4.1 ± 0.03