fireball
On 28 March 2021, at about 6:21 local time ( 4:21universal time), a very bright fireball was spotted over Spain. This bolide was generated by a rock from an asteroid that hit the atmosphere at about 96,000 km / h. The fireball began at an altitude of about 82 km over the province of Jaén (Andalusia), and ended at a height of around 29km over the province of Albacete (Castilla-La Mancha).

This bright meteor was recorded in the framework of the SMART project, operated by the Southwestern Europe Meteor Network (SWEMN) from the meteor-observing stations located at Sevilla, La Hita (Toledo), La Sagra (Granada), Sierra Nevada (Granada) , Calar Alto (Almería), and Madrid (Jaime Izquierdo, Complutense University of Madrid).

The event has been analyzed by the principal investigator of the SMART project: Dr. Jose M. Madiedo, from the Institute of Astrophysics of Andalusia (IAA-CSIC).6:21h (local peninsular time) of the dawn of March 28, from all the central and southern areas of the country it has been possible to see how a bright ball of fire crossed the night sky.


The phenomenon occurred when a rock from an asteroid entered the Earth's atmosphere at high speed and could be recorded by the detectors that the Southwestern Europe Fireball and Meteor Network (SWEMN) operates at the La Hita observatories (Toledo). , Calar Alto (Almería), La Sagra (Granada), Sierra Nevada (Granada), Madrid and Seville. These detectors work within the framework of the SMART Project, which is coordinated by the Andalusian Institute of Astrophysics (IAA-CSIC) with the aim of continuously monitoring the sky to record and study the impact against the earth's atmosphere of rocks from different objects in the world.

This phenomenon has been analyzed by the researcher in charge of the SMART Project, the astrophysicist José María Madiedo from the Institute of Astrophysics of Andalusia (IAA-CSIC). This analysis has made it possible to determine that the rock that originated this fireball entered the atmosphere at about 96 thousand kilometers per hour over the northeast of the province of Jaén.

Due to this high speed, the sudden friction with the air caused the rock to become incandescent at a height of about 82 km. This incandescence was what generated the bright ball of fire, which due to its great luminosity could be seen from more than 500 kilometers away. The fireball, which showed a marked green color, advanced in a northeast direction and became extinct over the southwest of the province of Albacete, at an altitude of about 29 kilometers.