English (UK)
The first two fireballs of March happened over Morocco (the first one) at 03h56 UT, and over Jaén, Granada and Almería provinces (Southeast Spain) the second one at 21h39 UT, both on March 2nd 2023.
These events were registered with the SMART Project’s detectors operated at Ayora (Valencia), Huelva, La Hita (Toledo), Calar Alto (Almería), Sierra Nevada (Granada), La Sagra (Granada), Seville and El Aljarafe (Seville).
Four of the external cameras of Calar Alto Observatory (Almería) also recorded these fireballs.
The data extracted with the preliminary analysis of both events, carried out by Professor José María Madiedo (Instituto de Astrofísica de Andalucía IAA-CSIC) are as follows:
Morocco fireball:
- Event Type: Cometary
- Initial speed: 238,000 km/h
- Initial altitudel: 120 km
- Final altitude: 84 km
Jaén, Granada and Almería fireball:
- Event type: asteroidal
- Initial speed: 97,000 km/h
- Initial altitude: 101 km
- Final altitude: 41 km
Below are the videos registered with the external cameras operated at Calar Alto Observatory in Almería. First two videos are of the Morocco event, while the other two videos show the fireball over Jaén, Granada and 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.
