English (UK)
Last January 30th 2024, at 22h17 UT, a bright fireball could be seen flying above southest Spain, crossing the southern part of Granada and Almería provinces, near the coast, in a long run.
This event was registered with the SMART Project’s detectors operated at Calar Alto (Almería), Huelva, La Hita (Toledo), Sierra Nevada (Granada), La Sagra (Granada) and Seville observatories.
The object was very high above the horizon, and only one of the external cameras operated at Calar Alto Observatory in Almería, recorded this nice fireball.
The preliminary analysis was carried out by Professor José María Madiedo (Instituto de Astrofísica de Andalucía IAA-CSIC), PI of the SMART Project, and his conclusions are the next:
Type of event: asteroidal- Initial speed: 51.000 km/h
- Initial altitude: 78 km
- Final altitude: 41 km
The image shows the path this object followed above the ground, with a trajectory that nearly crossed the provinces of both Granada and Almería from west to east, very near the south coasts, finishing close to Almería city.
Below is the video that could be registered with the southwest camera located at Calar Alto Observatory in Almería.
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.