Monash University researchers formed line searches across four properties this week, ultimately coming up empty-handed.<\/p>\n
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Determined planetary geologists and the lead meteorite geochemist for the Desert Fireball Network, Rachel Kirby, said the show was not over yet.<\/p>\n
“I am, of course, slightly disappointed that we didn’t find it,” Dr Kirby said.<\/p>\n
“[We’ll do some more] land searches. We’re trying to tee up if we could get a drone.”<\/p>\n
The Desert Fireball Network (DFN) is made up of cameras across the country, primarily in the southern states, to track meteors as they fall.<\/p>\n
The network includes 50 fully autonomous digital observatories that continually monitor 3 million square kilometres of the sky at night.<\/p>\n
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Dr Rachel Kirby during a search for the \u00a0meteorite near Dunolly in regional Victoria. (ABC News: Laura Mayers)<\/p>\n
It was through the DFN that Dr Kirby and her team were able to pinpoint where it fell.<\/p>\n
“Then what happens is we are able to use the data from these really specialised cameras to triangulate where it likely fell on the ground,” Dr Kirby said.<\/p>\n
“Because obviously what you see in the sky is very different from what you find on the ground.<\/p>\n
“We’ve been able to back-calculate the orbit, and we know it came from about the inner asteroid belt. So we’re already getting information about where it might have come from.”Answering key questions<\/p>\n
And what happens when \u2014 or if \u2014 the researchers find the pot of gold at the end of the rainbow?<\/p>\n
Dr Kirby said the small hunk of space rock could reveal some of the secrets of the universe.<\/p>\n
“We will do scans of the entire rock \u2014 things like its shape and density and what it’s like on the inside \u2014 and then we will break it open and sample the inside and start to really understand how and where it formed,” Dr Kirby said.<\/p>\n
“This can give us an understanding of questions like how life began, how the Earth was formed. These meteorites are really the key to understanding those questions.”<\/p>\n
Rachel Kirby shows students what to look for during a meteorite search. (ABC News: Laura Mayers)<\/p>\n
Michael Brown is an observational astronomer at Monash University and was eager to join the hunt for the meteorite.<\/p>\n
“I’m an astronomer so normally I get to see things from really far away. But, if I’m lucky, I might get to see [this one] close up,” Mr Brown said.<\/p>\n
“Often, like a lot of people, the work is analysing the data on the computer. So being out here and connecting with space and astronomy is really, really fun.”<\/p>\n