Several fireballs on July 29th 2017

Several fireballs could be recorded last July 29th 2017 with both SMART Project’s detectors and Calar Alto Observatory surveillance webcams. However, we only could retrieve more information from the most important one. That one happened at 23:11 UT of July 29th (01:11 local time 30th July). This object flew over Granada and Córdoba provinces at South Spain. The fireball could be recorded with the SMART Project’s detectors operated at Calar Alto, La Sagra, Huelva, La Hita and Sevilla observatories. This object could be also recorded with the Calar Alto Observatory surveillance webcams.

According with the analysis carried out by the SMART Project´s PI, Professor José María Madiedo (University of Huelva), this bright fireball was generated due to the impact against our atmosphere of a meteoroid detached from comet 169P/NEAT. The fireball started at about an altitude of 104 km above Granada Province and finishing at an altitude of about 73 km above the town of Rute (Córdoba Province). The speed of this object when entering the atmosphere was about 90.000 km/h.

The image above shows the path over the ground this meteoroid followed.

Below are the videos recorded with the SMART Project west detector and the west surveillance webcam, both at Calar Alto Observatory.

Together with those videos of the analyzed object, you can see also two other objects that could be recorded with North and Northwest Calar Alto Observatory surveillance webcams.

Next are the videos recorded with Calar Alto Observatory surveillance webcam of those object for which no more information could be gathered

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 (University of Huelva) to track that kind of objects. Specifically, Calar Alto (CAHA) station and the one at Sierra Nevada (IAA-CSIC) constitute a collaboration agreement between Professor Madiedo and both institutions.