English (UK)
During last week, we could observe many fireballs above our skies. Most of them are Geminids.
The brightest Geminid, until now, happened on December 14th above Almería east coast. This fireball was registered with the SMART Project’s detectors operated at Calar Alto (Almería), Sierra Nevada (Granada), La Sagra (Granada), La Hita (Toledo), Seville, Huelva and Aljarafe observatories.
In addition, as usual, some of the external surveillance cameras of Calar Alto Observatory in Almería could follow this event.
The preliminary analysis carried out by Professor José María Madiedo (Instituto de Astrofísica de Andalucía IAA-CSIC), concludes that this fireball was a Geminid, a rock detached from an asteroid which impacted against our atmosphere at an estimated speed of 131.000 km/h.
The luminous part of the event started at an altitude of 109 km above the Mediterranean Sea, just in front of Almería's coasts. Then the object moved westwards toward the coast, and finished at an altitude of 35 km above the sea.
The right image shows the path above the Mediterranean Sea followed by this object.
The left image is a nice photo of this fireball that seems to point to the 2.2m Calar Alto Observatory telescope.
Below are the videos of this event, and all of the fireballs registered with the Calar Alto external surveillance cameras along past week.
Gemínida del 14 de diciembre
December 11th
December 12th
December 13th
Calar Alto (CAHA) fireball detection station, together with the one at the Observatory of Sierra Nevada (IAA-CSIC) and others placed at different locations in Spain, are part of the S.M.A.R.T. project led by Professor José María Madiedo (IAA) to track that kind of objects. Specifically, Calar Alto (CAHA) station and the one at Sierra Nevada (IAA-CSIC) constitute a collaboration agreement between the IAA researcher José María Madiedo and both institutions.
