Stunning fireball above the north of Morocco


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During the night of August 20, 2023 at 01:56 UT, a bright fireball was observed in the skies over northern Morocco near Nador.

The phenomena was registered with the SMART Project’s detector located at Calar Alto (Almería), Huelva, La Hita (Toledo), Sierra Nevada (Granada), La Sagra (Granada) and Seville observatories. Two of the external cameras operated at Calar Alto Observatory in Almería, were also able to follow this event.

Professor José María Madiedo (Instituto de Astrofísica de Andalucía IAA-CSIC), has carried out the preliminary analysis of this event.

The trajectory on the ground that this object followed and that Professor Madiedo has been able to estimate in his study is the one shown in the image on the right.

The rest of the data that emerges from this phenomenon would be the following:

  • Event type: asteroidal
  • Estimated Speed: 61.000 km/h
  • Initial altitude: 97 km
  • Final altitude: 31 km

Below are the videos registered with the external cameras located at Calar Alto Observatory in 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.