meteorite gran canaria
First, it ripped the sky over La Palma, La Gomera and Tenerife at great speed, like lightning that emitted colours with shades of green and red, to then cause such a roar over Gran Canaria that it was heard from many areas of the island before, finally, crashing in the sea, causing astonishment among the islanders who, at first, didn't know what it was.

Scientists have confirmed that it was a meteorite which, although it is not the first to fall in the Archipelago, there are no precedents for what happened yesterday, as it was accompanied by tremors. Fortunately, the Emergency Services announced that there is no record that it caused injuries or material damage.

The incident occurred yesterday (Wednesday) just after 3pm, although the exact time of the impact recorded by the measurement systems installed by Involcan and the National Geographic Institute (IGN) recorded various readings between 3:16pm and 4:35pm.

The first alert the Emergency Services received came from the province of Tenerife, due to reports of a very fast green and red object in the sky.

But what really triggered all the alerts occurred immediately afterwards, when a huge roar was heard over Gran Canaria that residents of municipalities across the island including Agaete, San Bartolomé de Tirajana, Santa Brígida and Las Palmas demanded, with some concern, information about the noise and tremors.

"Even the window panes and blinds trembled," say those who phoned 112 to report it. Their testimonies regarding the sound spread too far to be, for example, an airplane breaking the sound barrier, which was one of the initial hypotheses.

Seismic activity was also ruled out, without leaving any room for doubt by scientists in less than an hour. While it was urgently verified that no one was in danger or that there had been any emergency associated with this phenomenon, everything pointed to an object arriving from outer space.

The Canarian Government gave an official statement in the afternoon that, indeed, the aforementioned "sonic boom was from a fireball that had crossed the sky over the Canary Islands and that has touched the atmosphere on this island, generating a powerful acoustic wave".

By then, the director of the Instituto de Astrofísica de Canarias, Rafael Rebolo, had already confirmed the information advanced by the Dean of the Canary Islands Press: it was a meteorite whose size is estimated, with natural precautions given the pressure of time, to be approximately a "metre in length" and whose weight would exceed "several tons".