A meteorite lit up the skies of Portugal and Spain in blue and left impressive images that were captured on video by those who unwittingly witnessed it. This wonderful phenomenon occurred over the weekend and could be seen in several cities in both European countries.
The images that were captured occurred in the region of Andalusia, Castilla-La Mancha, the Community of Madrid, Extremadura and Galicia, in Spain, as well as Lisbon in Portugal and were shared on social networks, where you can see the exact moment when from one moment to the next, a fireball appears in the sky and in seconds the night lights up completely blue and the meteorite is seen completely crossing the atmosphere.
One of those videos was that of a girl, who while recording herself, inadvertently completely recorded the passage of the meteorite, in front of her face totally stunned by what she had captured and at the same time impressed by what she had just seen, which we know, does not happen every day.
This girl captured the COOLEST video of the meteor that fell in Portugal ☄️ pic.twitter.com/NrunWrVGcS
— Nature is Amazing ☘️ (@AMAZlNGNATURE) May 20, 2024
Residents of where the meteorite was seen called emergency services asking about the phenomenon
During the sighting of the meteorite, several calls were received to the emergency services in Madrid, asking what had happened and what phenomenon had been seen in the sky. According to the Calar Alto Astronomical Observatory, the fireball was recorded by Project SMART’s detectors.
In addition, two of the external cameras of the High Heat Observatory in Almeria were able to follow this event.
According to Professor José Maria Madiedo of the Institute of Astrophysics of Andalusia IAA-CSIC, the fireball had a cometary origin and entered our atmosphere at a speed of 16 thousand kilometers per hour.
🇵🇹 | ÚLTIMA HORA
Un meteorito iluminó el cielo nocturno sobre Portugal. pic.twitter.com/osYYbzukyR
— UHN Plus (@UHN_Plus) May 19, 2024
The Fundación del Español Urgente (Fundéu) points out that an asteroid is a minor body in the solar system that orbits the Sun. A meteor and meteorite are solid bodies from space that enter the Earth’s atmosphere. A bolide is a meteor that passes through the atmosphere quickly and usually disintegrates. The latter is what happened on weekend night.
H I S T O R I C O
un meteorito divisado en los Cielos de Portugal y España deja unos videos e imagenes para la eternidad, es noticia mundial por quedar registrado en varios celulares de personas que pudieron captar el momento
I M P R E S I O N A N T E pic.twitter.com/4Wuq4Xgt1f
— Luis Aníbal Rincón Arguello. ® 🇨🇴 (@Rincon001A) May 19, 2024
With information from ADN 40 / Cover photo: taken from the internet
This story was written in Spanish by Daniel Matute in Cultura Colectiva
