Fireball ‘as bright as a full moon’ shoots through Andalucian sky

Fireball ‘as bright as a full moon’ shoots through the Andalucian sky

According to the description made by the Smart project on their website, a “spectacular fireball” shot across the Andalucian sky on the night of December 7, at 10:31pm. “Its brightness was similar to that of the full moon”, says the site.

Jose Maria Madiedo is the researcher responsible for carrying out this analysis for the SMART project. He is an astrophysicist from Granada’s Instituto de Astrofisica de Andalucia IAA-CSIC.

Madiedo pointed out that the rock that caused this phenomenon, entered the Earth’s atmosphere at a speed of about 86,000km/h, and came from an asteroid. These types of rocks that intersect the Earth’s orbit are called “meteoroids”.

As the scientist explained, the sudden friction created as the rock enters Earth’s atmosphere at this enormous speed causes it to become incandescent. This generated a fireball that began at an altitude of about 105km above the east of Granada, almost in a vertical line above the town of Gor.

From there, it travelled in a northwesterly direction, before dying out at an altitude of about 31km, almost vertically of the town of Pedro Martinez.

The fireball was registered by the SMART project detectors from the detection stations located in Calar Alto in the Sierra Nevada, Sevilla, La Sagra in Granada, and La Hita in Toledo, as reported by diariosur.es.

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Written by

Chris King

Originally from Wales, Chris spent years on the Costa del Sol before moving to the Algarve where he is a web reporter for The Euro Weekly News covering international and Spanish national news. Got a news story you want to share? Then get in touch at editorial@euroweeklynews.com

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