fireball
This fireball was recorded over Spain on 2021 October 4, at 23:12local time. It was produced by a fragment (a meteoroid) from an asteroid that hit the atmosphere at about 86,000 km / h. The fireball began at a height of about 88 km over the east of the province of Ávila and ended at an altitude of around 45 km above the ground level over the center of the same province.

The event was recorded in the framework of the SMART project, operated by the Southwestern Europe Meteor Network (SWEMN), from the meteor-observing stations located at La Hita (Toledo), La Sagra (Granada), Galapagar (Madrid), Huelva, Sierra Nevada, and Seville. 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).


This fireball flew over the province of Ávila on October 4 at 23:12local time. It occurred as a result of the entry into the Earth's atmosphere of a fragment detached from an asteroid at about 86 thousand km / h. The luminous phenomenon began at an altitude of about 88 km over the east of the province of Ávila, almost above the vertical of the town of El Hoyo de Pinares.

From there it advanced in a northwesterly direction, dying out at an altitude of about 45 km above the center of the province of Ávila, almost on the vertical of the town of Casasola. The phenomenon was recorded by the detectors that the Southwestern European Fireball and Meteor Network (SWEMN Network) operates in the observatories of La Hita (Toledo), El Guijo (Madrid), La Sagra (Granada), Huelva, Sierra Nevada and Seville.

These detectors work within the framework of the SMART Project, which is coordinated by the Institute of Astrophysics of Andalusia (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 Solar System. This car has been analyzed by the researcher responsible for the SMART Project, the astrophysicist José María Madiedo from the Instituto de Astrofísica de Andalucía (IAA-CSIC).