Fireball Streaks Across Moroccan Sky at 36,000 km/h, Spotted by Spanish Researchers

8 August 2021 – byPrince@Bladi · 1 min read

A fireball crossing the Moroccan sky at a speed of 36,000 km/h was spotted on Friday from Andalusia by researchers from several Spanish institutes.

The passage of the fireball in the Moroccan sky was confirmed by the detectors of the SMART project led by the Andalusian Institute of Astrophysics (IAA-CSIC), the astronomical observatories of Seville, Sierra Nevada (Granada) and Calar Alto (Almería). The fireball was also seen on Friday by many witnesses, most of them located in Andalusia, according to 20minutos.

To read: Moroccan Scientists Contribute to Study on TRAPPIST-1 Exoplanets’ Composition

According to José María Madiedo of the Andalusian Institute of Astrophysics (IAA-CSIC), and principal researcher of the SMART project, the phenomenon occurred after a rock detached from an asteroid and entered the Earth’s atmosphere at a speed of 36,000 kilometers per hour, which caused the fireball seen in the Moroccan sky, at the level of the province of Taza. The ball then continued its course towards the northwest before disappearing from the detectors’ field of vision at an altitude of about 40 kilometers.