You don't have to be a fan of astronomy for one's eyes to light up when seeing a celestial phenomenon. Without prior warning, at 9.04pm on Tuesday 4 October, a fireball crossed the sky over Andalucía and Extremadura. Although it was visible in all provinces it was especially prominent in Malaga, Granada, Seville and Cordoba.
The fireball flew over the Gulf of Cadiz, but it was so bright that it could be seen from more than 700 km away.
The astronomical event was confirmed by the researcher responsible for the SMART project, the astrophysicist José María Madiedo, from the Institute of Astrophysics of Andalusia IAA-CSIC.
This type of phenomenon occurs when rocks enter the Earth's atmosphere at high speed, which in this case reached 69,000 km/h. The violent friction with the Earth's atmosphere at this enormous speed causes the rock's surface to heat up to a temperature of several thousand degrees Celsius and become incandescent, thus generating a ball of fire. The rock was completely destroyed in the atmosphere, so no fragments fell into the sea.
A fireball hurtled across the Malaga night sky in the province in the early hours of this Tuesday morning, after entering the Earth's atmosphere at 60,000 kilometres an hour and travelling almost parallel to the ground.
José María Madiedo, a researcher at the Andalusian Institute of Astrophysics and the astrophysicist who heads the SMART project, said the rock had come from an asteroid.
This type of rock which enters the atmosphere at great speed is called a meteoroid. When it collides with the air, its surface heats up and it becomes incandescent, turning it into a fireball.
We received 876 reports about a fireball seen over County Carlow, County Cavan, County Clare, County Cork, County Donegal, County Dublin, County Galway, County Kilkenny, County Leitrim, County Limerick, County Louth, County Mayo, County Sligo, County Tipperary, County Waterford, County Wexford, County Wicklow, England and No on Wednesday, September 14th 2022 around 20:58 UT.
This bright bolide was seen from Spain on September 5, at 2:01 local time (equivalent to 0:01 universal time). The event was generated by a rock (a meteoroid) from a comet that hit the atmosphere at about 235,000 km/h. The fireball overflew Morocco. It began at an altitude of about 133 km over the Mediterranean Sea, moved southwest, and ended at a height of around 78 km over the locality of Iamourane.
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 Huelva, La Hita, CAHA, OSN, La Sagra, and Sevilla. 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).
The cameras of Clima ao Vivo and Bramon, recorded a meteor that crossed the sky of the South and Southeast of Brazil, in the dawn of this Monday (05). Check out the locations and our partners below:
Southeast
Minas Gerais
- Pedro Leopoldo/MG - Blink Telecom
- Patos de Minas/MG - Ivan Soares (Bramon)
- Belo Horizonte/MG - Aeroclube de Minas Gerais
We received 112 reports about a fireball seen over CT, MA, ME, NH, NJ, NY, OH, Ontario, PA, Québec, Quebec and VT on Saturday, September 3rd 2022 around 03:30 UT.
