The high-luminosity meteor detected on Sunday at 0.46 a.m. on the peninsula traveled through Spain and Portugal at 161,000 kilometers per hour, without risk to the population, and disintegrated over the Atlantic Ocean, as certified by the Institute of Astrophysics of Andalusia of the Higher Council of CSIC Scientific Research (IAA-CSIC), dependent on the Ministry of Science, Innovation and Universities.
This phenomenon occurred due to the entry into the atmosphere of a fragment of rock detached from a comet, according to the researcher of the Solar System department of the IAA-CSIC and member of the CSIC Emergency Advisory Committee, José Luis Ortiz.
The car hit the highest layers of the atmosphere at a speed of 161,000 kilometers per hour with a very flat trajectory, since the inclination recorded was ten degrees above the horizontal, which increased its visibility during the few seconds that the object It crossed the sky transformed into a bright fireball.
The fragment of space rock began to be visible at an altitude of about 122 kilometers near the vertical of the town of Don Benito (Badajoz), and advanced in a northwesterly direction towards Portugal until disappearing beyond the Iberian Peninsula, over the Atlantic Ocean. , as reported by the CSIC.
In total, the IAA-CSIC estimates that the distance taken by the fireball in the atmosphere before going extinct was about 500 kilometers.
The atmospheric phenomenon was recorded by the detection systems of the ‘Spectroscopy of Meteroids in the Atmosphere with Robotics Technologies’ (Smart) project from stations located in Huelva or Seville, among others.
