Fireball above Alborán Sea (Southwest Mediterranean Sea) on November 8th 2020


 

Last night, at 03:13 UT (04:13 local time), a bright fireball flew above Alborán Sea (Southwest of Mediterranean Sea) just in front of Granada and Almería (South Spain) coasts.

This event could be registered with the SMART Project's detectors located at Calar Alto (Almería), Sierra Nevada and La Sagra (Granada), La Hita (Toledo) and Seville Observatories.

pathTwo of the Calar Alto Observatory (Almería) external surveillance webcams could also follow this object.

Following the preliminary analysis carried out by Professor José María Madiedo (Instituto de Astrofísica de Andalucía IAA-CSIC), this phenomena was a cometary event. A rock detached from a comet impacted against our atmosphera at an estimated speed of about 101.000 km/h.

The luminous part of the event started at an altitude of 97 km above the Mediterranean Sean. Then the object moved eastward and finished at an altitude of 46 km.

As shown on the picture, the whole path of this fireball happened above the Mediterranean Sea.

Below are the videos from the SMART Project's detector and the surveillance webcams operated all of them from Calar Alto Observatory (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.