English (UK)
Last night of May 23rd 2022, at 00h42 UT, a very bright fireball was observed above Cataluña (Northeast Spain).
This phenomena was registered with the detectors that the SMART Project operates at Calar Alto (Almería), Sierra Nevada (Granada), La Sagra (Granada), Ayora (Valencia), Olocau (Valencia), Breda (Barcelona) and La Hita (Toledo) observatories.
Two of the external cameras at Calar Alto Observatory in Almería (about 700 km away of this event) registered also this fireball.
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: cometary
- Initial speed: 72,000 km/h
- Initial altitude: 88 km
- Final altitude: 28 km
As showed on the image, this fireball moved southwest to northeast above Barcelona province and finished very close to Gerona province.
Although at first it seemed that there was a possibility that a part of the meteoroid had reached the ground in the form of a meteorite, subsequent more detailed analyzes have practically ruled out this possibility.
It is important to notice that this event happened very far from Calar Alto Observatory, about 700 km away, so this shows clearly the impressive transparency of Calar Alto skies.
Below are the videos of the Calar Alto Observatory external cameras. The viedo on the top right is a zoomed area of one of the external 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.
