The detectors of the Smart project, of the Institute of Astrophysics of Andalusia (IAA-CSIC), and of the astronomical observatories of Seville, Sierra Nevada, La Sagra (Granada), Calar Alto (Almería) and La Hita (Toledo), recorded, on Saturday September 11, the passage of a ball of fire in the sky of north-west Morocco at 245,000 km/hour.
According to the principal researcher of the Smart project, José María Madiedo, of the Institute of Astrophysics of Andalusia (IAA-CSIC), the fireball was recorded in the early morning of Saturday September 11 at 5:25 a.m.
The event occurred following the entry into the earth’s atmosphere of a rock (a meteoroid) detached from a comet at a speed of around 245,000 km/h, reports El Mundo.
The high temperature reached by the rock when it entered the atmosphere generated a fireball, which started at an altitude of around 128 kilometers above the eastern region of Morocco, continues the same source.
From there, it advanced in a northwest direction, ending at an altitude of approximately 77 kilometers above the west of the same region.
Last August and May, two “sensational” fireballs could be observed in the Moroccan sky, exposed in publications on social networks.
On his Twitter account, astrophysicist José María Madiedo shared the video recorded by the La Hita Observatory (Toledo), “no less than 664 kilometers away,” he stressed.
