English (UK)
At 22:14 UT on 3 May, a bright, short bolid was seen near the town of Caspe, Zaragoza province, in the northern direction. The bolide captured is about 495km from the observatory, so we can not appreciate its light footprint with such clarity, but its final explosion after entering the atmosphere.
This object was recorded in the detectors of the SMART Project operated in Calar Alto (Almeria), Sierra Nevada, La Sagra (Granada), La Hita (Toledo), Olocau (Valencia), Faro de Cullera (Valentina), Marçà (Tarragona) and Sant Celoni.
The preliminary analysis of this event was carried out by Professor José María Madiedo (Instituto de Astrofísica de Andalucía IAA-CSIC). His conclusions are the next:
- Type of event: asteroidal
- Initial speed: 55,000 km/h
- Initial altitude: 81 km
- Final altitude: 24 km
The following is a video of one of the external cameras of the Calar Alto Observatory:
In the morning of May 2nd, 1:33:44 UT, another fireball can be seen in the north-northeast direction. We still have no data on this event (we will update the news as soon as we have them), only these videos that were captured by the cameras of the observatory, where we can see the fireball entering a cloud, which creates a beautiful glimmer of light at its passage:
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.