WATCH – GREAT BALL OF FIRE: Meteorite lights up night sky in south of Spain

A METEORITE has lit up the skies in the south of Spain as it streaked through the atmosphere.

The phenomenon set social media alight and was a hot topic of conversation across Facebook groups popular with Brit expats.

The Astronomical Observatory of the Hita (Toledo) confirmed that the fireball was visible across much of Andalucia early on Thursday morning.

It comes just a few weeks after a similar sighting.

It is believed the meteorite was travelling at about 72,000 km/h over the Mediterranean Sea, off the coast of Almeria, and that this enormous speed caused the rock to become incandescent, generating a bright ball of fire at an altitude of about 116 kilometres above sea level. 

Experts say that it could be seen from more than 500 kilometres away and the rock was completely destroyed in the atmosphere, without any debris reaching the sea.

SMART project detectors in observatories at Calar Alto (Almería), La Sagra (Granada), Sierra Nevada (Granada) and Sevilla recorded the phenomenon.

The University of Huelva’s SMART project aims to continuously monitor the sky with the aim of recording and studying the impact on the Earth’s atmosphere of rocks from different objects of the solar system.

On average just one or two meteorites are recorded per month across the Iberian Peninsula.