Spectacular Fireball Streaks Across Moroccan Sky at 83,000 km/h, Captured on Video

The passage of the fireball was reported on Sunday at 05:08 by the detectors of the SMART project led by the Andalusian Institute of Astrophysics (IAA-CSIC), the astronomical observatories of Seville, Sierra Nevada and La Sagra (Granada) and Calar Alto (Almería), reported EFE.

The phenomenon occurred after a rock detached from an asteroid and entered the Earth’s atmosphere at a speed of about 83,000 km/h. The fireball was distinguished by its long duration, as it took about 15 seconds to go out, while it usually only lasts two or three seconds.

To read: Fireball Streaks Across Atlantic Coast at 72,000 km/h, Visible from Spain and Morocco

According to José María Madiedo, the principal researcher of the SMART project, it is a "grazing bolide", that is, a fireball that is generated when a rock penetrates the atmosphere in a quasi-tangential manner, following a trajectory almost parallel to the ground.

The fireball started its course at an altitude of about 99 kilometers over northern Morocco, then continued its trajectory over the Mediterranean at an altitude of about 100 kilometers, vertically over a point located about 85 kilometers southeast of Ibiza. The passage of the fireball was widely observed by several inhabitants of southern and central Spain, especially those in the province of Toledo.

The SMART project detectors are installed as part of the Southwest Europe Fireball and Meteor Network (SWEMN), whose objective is to constantly monitor the sky to record and study the impact on the Earth’s atmosphere of rocks and various objects in the solar system.