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Meteor seen over Spain as fireball hits speeds of 33,000 mph
Locals in Andalusia in the south of Spain were stunned by another meteor streaking across the sky, the second this month.
A fireball lit up the sky over the south of Spain on Friday afternoon, when a meteor streaked across the sky and was seen in various parts of Andalusia. It’s the second major meteor to steak across the sky in the region this month.
The phenomenon was verified by the Calar Alto observatory, located in Almería, whose detectors of the SMART Project —a project coordinated by the Institute of Astrophysics of Andalusia— registered the fireball at 2.46 p.m. ET, 8.46 Spanish time. The same institution also said that two of the external cameras with which it is equipped were able to record the entire trajectory of the fireball, from its beginning to its final explosion.
Meteroids are the overall term for ‘space rocks’, being anything from dust grains to small asteroids. When these meteroids enter the earth’s atmosphere and burn up the fireballs are called meteors. If part of the object makes it to the ground, that’s called a meteorite. In this case it appears the fireball exploded entirely meaning there is no meteorite to be collected.
The Principal Investigator of the SMART Project, José María Madiedo, said in his preliminary report that the origin of the event was asteroidal, which entered the earth’s atmosphere at a speed of 33,000 mph (53,000 km/h).
The Observatory said the visible part of the event began at an altitude of about 58 miles (93 kilometers) above the city of Cádiz, leaving behind what some witnesses have commented was a “green wake”. It moved north across Andalusia, before finishing at an altitude of about 11 miles (18 kilometers).
Second fireball this month over Spain
This is not the first time this has happened in the month of October. During the dawn of the 5th a similar event took place. On that occasion, the meteorite entered the atmosphere around 9:00 p.m. at a speed of 43,000 mph (69,000 km/hr). That event was so bright that it could be seen not only in Andalusia —especially in Córdoba, Malaga, Seville and Granada— but also in Extremadura.