English (UK)
Last May 18th 2020, at 23:44 UT a bright fireball flew above Zaragoza Province (northeast Spain) and could be registered even from Almería.
This phenomena took place above the southwest part of Zaragoza Province and was registered with the detectors that the SMART Project operates at Calar Alto (Almería), La Hita (Toledo) and Seville observatories.
From Calar Alto Observatory, in Almería and about 500 km away from the place where the event happened, the north surveillance webcam was also able to record the fireball.
Following the preliminary analysis carried out by Professor José María Madiedo (Instituto de Astrofísica de Andalucía IAA-CSIC), this event was caused by a rock detached from an asteroid which impacted against our atmosphere at an estimated speed of 83.000 km/h.
The luminous part of the event took place at an altitude of about 92 km above the southwest part of Zaragoza province (northwest Spain). The object then moved southwestward and finished at an altitude of 28 km.
Its path above the Zaragoza province is shown on the left image.
Below is the video that the Calar Alto Observatory north surveillance webcam could register.
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.
