Fireball Soars Over Southern Spain

FIREBALL: Soars over Southern Spain Credit twitter

On July 22, the detectors of the SMART project saw a fireball soar over southern Spain’s sky at over 220,000 kilometres per hour. The Institute of Astrophysics of Andalucia registered the fireball from astronomical observatories of Sevilla and Calar Alto in Almeria.

AS reported by the chief investigator of the SMART project, Jose María Madiedo, who is part of the Institute of Astrophysics of Andalucia (IAA-CSIC), the fireball was recorded at 3.49am on July 22.

The phenomenon occurs when a rock from a comet enters the Earth’s atmosphere at a speed of about 220,000 kilometres per hour.

The collision with the atmosphere at this enormous speed caused the rock to become incandescent and generate a fireball that soared at an altitude of about 120 kilometres above the Gulf of Cadiz; from there it advanced in a northwesterly direction, becoming extinct at about 75 kilometres above sea level.

The detectors of the SMART project operate within the framework of the Southwest Europe Fireball and Meteor Network (SWEMN), which aims to continuously monitor the sky in order to record and study the impact against the Earth’s atmosphere of rocks from different objects of the Solar System.

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Laura Taylor

Laura Taylor is a graduate from the University of Leeds. At university, she obtained a Bachelors in Communication and Media, as well as a Masters in International Relations.
She is half British and half Spanish and resides in Malaga. Her focus when writing news typically encompasses national Spanish news and local news from the Costa del Sol.

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