English (UK)
At 00h22 UT of last August 5th 2021, a very bright fireball, ending with a huge explosion, flew above Almería’s skies (Southeast Spain).
This object was registered with the SMART Project's detectors operated at Calar Alto (Almería), Sierra Nevada (Granada), La Sagra (Granada), La Hita (Toledo) and Seville observatories.
As this object happened very high above the horizon, some of the Calar Alto external surveillance webcams recorded the flash of the explosion, but only one camera pointing to the sky saw the phenomena completely. The video is impressive.
Following the preliminary analysis carried out by Professor José María Madiedo (Instituto de Astrofísica de Andalucía IAA-CSIC), and SMART project's PI, this event had a cometary origin, and was caused by a rock which impacted against our atmosphere at an estimated speed of 90.000 km/h.
The luminous part of the phenomena started at an altitude of 104 km above Almería’s east coast. Then the object moved northward and finished at an altitude of 73 km above the ground.
This fireball was not a Perseid, but an Alpha-Capricornid.
The top left image shows the path this fireball followed above the Valencia (East Spain).
Below is the video registered with one of the Calar Alto Observatory sky cameras.
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.
