A meteor was seen by many on Saturday night, observed “from the French coast to the south of the Algarve”.
Geophysicist Rui Gonçalves reported that two of the four cameras in Portugal on the AllSky7 network recorded the meteor seen on Saturday at around 11.45pm in Portugal, but said it was premature to say whether it fell and where. If it falls on the ground it is a meteorite, if it doesn’t fall it is a meteor.
The professor at the Polytechnic Institute of Tomar highlighted that it was necessary to “gather more data” to be able to calculate the trajectory.
Although it is now necessary to cross-check data, which takes time, he added that Spanish members of the network, benefitting from more equipment, say that “almost nothing fell from the meteor or ended up in the Atlantic”, according to preliminary data from the Andalusian Institute of Astrophysics.
In Portugal, the Tomar camera caught footage that is “very good”, in São Brás de Alportel the camera only caught “the beginning of the event” and in Braga and Sesimbra the sky was cloudy and only the glare was visible, with no clear image.
“Only after calculating the trajectory can we have any idea whether there is any material left and where it fell, but this is not immediate”, emphasized the geophysicist.
In Portugal, the passage of the “meter”, with “long duration and a long trail”, was observed at 11:46 pm on Saturday night. According to the Institute of Astrophysics of Andalusia, in Spain, it was travelling at approximately 161 kilometres per hour.
The initial altitude of the meteor was recorded at 122 kilometers high and was no longer visible once it fell to 54 kilometres altitude, but Rui Gonçalves explained that this does not mean that it disintegrated at that time.
“They can shine up to 30/40 kilometres of altitude. Normally, you can't see it from there, it's called dark flight. This has to be calculated, and this part is more difficult to calculate, because we have to make a series of assumptions to calculate where the pieces may have fallen”, added the investigator, speaking to the Lusa agency.
He also explained that, like shooting stars - although they are much smaller - meteors are consumed in the atmosphere and it is from this chemical process that the trail of light is seen, and the blue flash “indicates that the type of material that is burning, vaporizing, is magnesium”.
“As they travel at several kilometres per second, against the air, the pressure that it creates in the atmosphere is so great that temperatures easily reach 25,000 degrees, and at that temperature it vaporizes everything”, he said.
Photo by ddpai
