BLADE: An Automated Framework for Classifying Light Curves from the Center for Near-Earth Object Studies Fireball Database

Silber, Elizabeth Allaryce; Sawal, Vedant

doi:10.3847/1538-3881/adeb55

BLADE: An Automated Framework for Classifying Light Curves from the Center for Near-Earth Object Studies Fireball Database

Journal Article · Thu Aug 07 00:00:00 EDT 2025 · The Astronomical Journal

DOI:https://doi.org/10.3847/1538-3881/adeb55· OSTI ID:2585564

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Sandia National Lab. (SNL-NM), Albuquerque, NM (United States)

Fireballs (bolides) are high-energy luminous phenomena produced when meteoroids and small asteroids enter Earth’s atmosphere at hypersonic speeds, often resulting in fragmentation or complete disintegration accompanied by significant energy release. The resulting bolide light curves capture temporal brightness variations as these objects traverse increasingly dense atmospheric layers, providing essential information on meteoroid entry dynamics, fragmentation behavior, and atmospheric energy deposition processes. The Center for Near-Earth Object Studies’ (CNEOS) continuously expanding fireball database offers a globally comprehensive archive of bolide events, including light curves and associated metadata. Events associated with infrasound detections allow direct correlations between acoustic signatures and light curve features, therefore enabling detailed analyses of fragmentation dynamics and energy deposition. Here, we introduce Bolide Light-curve Analysis and Discrimination Explorer (BLADE), a robust and high-fidelity framework specifically designed to analyze bolide light curves for objects detected from space. BLADE incorporates a processing pipeline integrating Savitzky–Golay filtering, prominence-based peak detection, and gradient analysis, enabling systematic identification and classification of fragmentation events and their associated energy release characteristics. Preliminary results demonstrate that BLADE reliably distinguishes distinct bolide behaviors, providing an objective, scalable methodology for characterization and analysis of large bolide light curve data sets. This foundational work establishes a novel pathway for advanced bolide research, with promising applications in planetary defense and global atmospheric monitoring. Future research should adopt an integrative approach combining CNEOS optical data with complementary infrasound measurements, further clarifying relationships between bolide energy deposition and acoustic signatures, thus refining our understanding of meteoroid and asteroid atmospheric entry processes.

View Accepted Manuscript (DOE)

Research Organization:: Sandia National Laboratories (SNL-NM), Albuquerque, NM (United States)

Sponsoring Organization:: USDOE National Nuclear Security Administration (NNSA); USDOE Laboratory Directed Research and Development (LDRD) Program

Grant/Contract Number:: NA0003525

OSTI ID:: 2585564

Report Number(s):: SAND--2025-10036J; 1779085

Journal Information:: The Astronomical Journal, Journal Name: The Astronomical Journal Journal Issue: 3 Vol. 170; ISSN 0004-6256; ISSN 1538-3881

Publisher:: American Astronomical SocietyCopyright Statement

Country of Publication:: United States

Language:: English

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