Daylight Fireball Over Iberia

[Lionel]

An impressive fireball much brighter than the Full Moon was observed around 16h46m45s (+-10s) UTC on Sunday 4 January, 2004. In spite of appearing in broad daylight it was seen by thousands of people, who were attending diverse festivities in the Northern part of the peninsula. Some of them were able to obtain a record of great scientific value, filming the bolide over well known landmarks in Leon, for example. This press release tries to clarify the nature of this phenomenon, which was produced by the entering of a fragment of a comet or asteroid in the terrestrial atmosphere. When encountering the Earth at speeds of order of tens of thousand of kilometers/hour, these fragments produce a bright light phenomena called a fireball or bolide. The object of January 4 underwent strong fragmentation along its route. We believe that remains might have survived, since when the fireball was filmed at the end of its trajectory, over the edge between Leon and Burgos, it already was below 30 kilometres altitude. We continue to investigate the data on the trajectory to determine the locations of a possible meteorite fall.

In the coming days we will incorporate on this page all the new data that are coming forth based on the images and information offered by the lucky witnesses of this historical event.

View: Full Article | Source: Spanish Fireball Network