It is a rock from an asteroid that, upon coming into contact with the atmosphere, has become incandescent.
The detectors of La Hita Astronomical Complex (Toledo) have detected at 2:24 a.m. on March 12 a rock from an asteroid that, upon entering the Earth’s atmosphere, at a speed of about 53,000 kilometers per hour, became incandescent and thus generated a ball of fire.
The phenomenon was recorded by the detectors that the Southwest European Blids and Meteors Network (Red Swemn) operates in La Hita, within the framework of the Smart project that is coordinated from the Institute of Astrophysics of Andalusia (IAA-CSIC) with the objective of continuously monitoring the sky to record and study the impact against the Earth’s atmosphere of rocks from different objects in the Solar System.
This rock was also recorded by the detectors that this same research project has installed in the observatories of Calar Alto, Sierra Nevada, Seville, La Sagra (Granada), Huelva, Breda (Tarragona) and Sant Celoni (Girona), reports the Astrohita Foundation.
The ball of fire It has been analyzed by the researcher in charge of the Smart Project, José María Maiedo and, according to the results of this analysis, the phenomenon occurred when a rock entered the Earth’s atmosphere at a speed of about 53,000 kilometers per hour. coming from an asteroid.
These rocks that intersect with the Earth’s orbit are called meteoroids and the sudden friction of the rock with the atmosphere at this enormous speed caused the rock to become incandescent, thus generating a ball of fire that began at an altitude of about 74 kilometers above the town of Pedrezuela (Madrid) and from there it advanced. in a northwesterly direction and extinguished at an altitude of about 33 kilometers above the town of Navalilla (Segovia).
However, the great luminosity that this solidus reached meant that it could be seen from more than 700 kilometers away from those places.
Throughout its trajectory, the fireball showed several explosions that caused sudden increases in its luminosity and that were due to several abrupt ruptures of the rock.
The total distance that the fireball traveled through the atmosphere before extinguishing itself was about 77 kilometers and the rock was totally destroyed in the atmosphere, due to which no fragment managed to reach the ground.
According to the criteria of