The internet is on fire with images of a meteor streaking through the night sky over Portugal and Spain, lighting up the sky in a blue-green fireball.
The meteor was confirmed by the European Space Agency (ESA), which caught the fireball with its cameras in Cáceres, Spain, on Saturday (May 18) at 6:46 PM EDT (10:46 PM UTC). The ESA confirmed that the fireball was part of a comet that streaked over Spain and Portugal at a speed of about 100,000 miles per hour, or about 65 times as fast as the top speed of a Lockheed Martin F-16 fighter jet. The ESA added that the meteor probably burned up over the Atlantic Ocean at an altitude of about 60 kilometers above Earth.
Social media users took to X, Facebook and Reddit in their thousands to discuss the fierce fireball and share stunning images and videos.
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The ESA wrote on its “
☄️😍 ESA’s fireball camera in Cáceres, Spain, spotted this stunning meteor last night! Our Planetary Defense Office is currently analyzing the size and trajectory of the object to assess the likelihood that material has reached the surface. Credit: ESA/PDO/ AMS82 – AllSky7 pic.twitter.com/gSU4unncQWMay 19, 2024
X user Colin Rugg shared stunning images of the meteor on his feed, writing: “This is insane. Early reports claim the blue flash could be seen hundreds of miles across the night sky. At this time this has not been confirmed if it hits the Earth’s surface would hit, some reports say it may have fallen near the town of Castro Daire. Other reports say it was closer to Pinheiro.
Just in: meteor spotted in the sky over Spain and Portugal. This is insane. Early reports claim the blue flash could be seen hundreds of miles across the night sky. At this time it has not been confirmed whether it has hit Earth. However, the Earth’s surface is somewhat… pic.twitter.com/PNMs2CDkW9May 19, 2024
News and media organization Nova Portugal also shared images of the fireball, taken from different locations.
“A meteorite lit up the sky of Portugal last night with a sparkling blue to the amazement of the residents who were outside at the time of its passage. Thousands of Portuguese shared their reactions to the event on social networks.”
#Event: A meteorite from illuminated city in Portugal 🇵🇹 from a bruise here as a surprise for the inhabitants who trouvaient on the outside at the time of their passage. on the social resources. pic.twitter.com/OE4HUCUr3FMay 19, 2024
Such ‘shooting stars’ are pieces of material that break away from larger bodies such as asteroids, comets, the moon or even other planets and enter the Earth’s atmosphere at high speeds. The friction these fragments, called meteoroids (the name they are given when they are in space), encounter causes them to glow brightly and become meteors for a few short seconds as they streak through the atmosphere, creating a glowing trail .
About 90% to 95% of the interstellar matter that makes its way to Earth this way does not last long enough to reach the ground. When a meteoroid reaches the ground, it is usually in the form of dust or very small particles and is called a meteorite.
Just as different chemical elements are used to generate fireworks of different colors, the color of this fireball indicates its chemical composition.
The bright blue/green flash of the fireball indicates the combustion of magnesium. One type of meteorite known to contain magnesium are the ‘pallasites’, which contain large olive-green crystals that are a form of magnesium-iron silicate called olivine.
Although the origin of pallasites is somewhat mysterious, scientists think they may be formed when asteroids melt, sinking denser material toward their cores. Pallasites could come from the boundary between an asteroid’s metallic core and its silicate, olivine-rich mantle.
If this is the case, pallasite scientists can learn a lot about how rocky planets like Earth formed in the solar system about 4.5 billion years ago.
Of course, this meteorite has not yet been confirmed to be pallasite, and scientists don’t know if any of it actually reached the ground, although the ESA says the possibility of this is remote at best.
There is little doubt that the eruption of this fireball over Portugal and Spain will keep meteorite hunters busy for at least the next few days looking for fragments that could have reached solid ground.