EPSC Abstracts
Vol. 19, EPSC2026-626, 2026, updated on 02 Jul 2026
https://doi.org/10.5194/epsc2026-626
Europlanet Science Congress 2026
© Author(s) 2026. This work is distributed under
the Creative Commons Attribution 4.0 License.
Oral | Thursday, 10 Sep, 14:18–14:30 (CEST)| Room Sun (Amare Studio)
Development and Preliminary Results of a Novel and Fully-Automated Data Analysis Pipeline for the PRISMA Fireball Network
Dario Barghini1, Matteo Di Carlo2, Daniele Gardiol1, Chiara Lamberti1, Andrea Novati3, Paola Stella Ardizzone1, Albino Carbognani4, Mario Di Martino1, Carmelo Falco1, Gabriele Giuli5, Giuseppe Leto6, Marco Morelli7, Giovanni Pratesi8,9, Walter Riva10,11, and Giovanna Maria Stirpe4
Dario Barghini et al.
  • 1Istituto Nazionale di Astrofisica - Osservatorio Astrofisico di Torino, Via Osservatorio 20, Pino Torinese, Italy
  • 2Istituto Nazionale di Astrofisica - Osservatorio Astronomico d’Abruzzo, Via Mentore Maggini snc, Teramo, Italy
  • 3N3 Hack for Business, Via Gian Luigi Pandolfi 7, Codogno, Italy
  • 4Istituto Nazionale di Astrofisica - Osservatorio di Astrofisica e Scienze dello Spazio, Via Gobetti 93/3, Bologna, Italy
  • 5Scuola di Scienze e Tecnologie - Università di Camerino, sezione Geologia, via Gentile III da Varano, Camerino, Italy
  • 6Istituto Nazionale di Astrofisica - Osservatorio Astrofisico di Catania, Via Santa Sofia 78, Catania, Italy
  • 7Museo Italiano di Scienze Planetarie - Fondazione Parsec, Via Galcianese 20H, Prato, Italy
  • 8Dipartimento di Scienze della Terra, Università degli Studi di Firenze, Via Gino Capponi 3R, Firenze, Italy
  • 9Istituto Nazionale di Astrofisica – Istituto di Astrofisica e Planetologia Spaziali, Via Fosso del Cavaliere 100, Roma, Italy
  • 10Università degli Studi di Genova, Via Balbi 5, Italy
  • 11Osservatorio Astronomico del Righi, Via Mura delle Chiappe 44, Genova, Italy

To date, the optical observation of meteors and fireballs remains one of the most fruitful methods for probing the population of cm-sized and smaller meteoroids. Simultaneously, such observations enable the recovery of freshly-fallen meteorites; indeed, the precise reconstruction of their three-dimensional trajectory in the atmosphere allows to pin-point a relatively small area on the ground where meteorites are likely to be recovered.

Pursuing these objectives, the PRISMA (Prima Rete Italiana per la Sorveglianza sistematica di Meteore e Atmosfera) fireball network has deployed, since 2016, more than 80 all-sky cameras dedicated to the observation of fireballs and bolides and to the recovery of freshly-fallen meteorites on the Italian territory. PRISMA is a partner of the international collaboration FRIPON and, to date, the project involves more than 70 participating institutions, and it is coordinated by INAF, the Italian National Institute for Astrophysics.

Research activity of recent years has been dedicated to the development, deployment and testing of a complete, original, and automated data analysis pipeline, able to perform automatic astrometric and photometric calibration for each camera and to reconstruct the trajectory of each observed fireball. From there, the pipeline estimates the physical parameters of the meteoroid – based on the simultaneous comparison of altitude, speed and magnitude against a dynamic model – and, finally, its pre-atmospheric orbit.

After ten years of operations, PRISMA has observed more than 3000 bright meteors with a limiting meteor magnitude of about -1, among which 11 were determined to be meteorite-droppers and two of them led to meteorite recoveries, namely Cavezzo (01/01/2020, L5-an, 55.3 g) and Matera (14/02/2023, H5, 117.5 g). In this contribution, we present an overview of the PRISMA data reduction pipeline, the current challenges and the future perspectives.

How to cite: Barghini, D., Di Carlo, M., Gardiol, D., Lamberti, C., Novati, A., Ardizzone, P. S., Carbognani, A., Di Martino, M., Falco, C., Giuli, G., Leto, G., Morelli, M., Pratesi, G., Riva, W., and Stirpe, G. M.: Development and Preliminary Results of a Novel and Fully-Automated Data Analysis Pipeline for the PRISMA Fireball Network, Europlanet Science Congress 2026, The Hague, The Netherlands, 7–11 Sep 2026, EPSC2026-626, https://doi.org/10.5194/epsc2026-626, 2026.