• Email Us: [email protected]
  • Contact Us: +1 718 874 1545
  • Skip to main content
  • Skip to primary sidebar

Medical Market Report

  • Home
  • All Reports
  • About Us
  • Contact Us

Rare Fireball Comet Turns Night Into Day Over Spain And Portugal In Spectacular Footage

May 20, 2024 by Deborah Bloomfield

Shortly before midnight on Saturday night, an enormous blue-green fireball lit up the skies over Portugal, turning night back into day for a few incredible seconds. Also visible across parts of Spain, the light show was the work of a comet that burnt up in the Earth’s atmosphere as its race across the cosmos came to a dramatic end over the Atlantic Ocean.

I was at a party in the mountains of central Portugal at the time of the celestial display. The night was a cloudy one, strangely dull for a part of the world that is usually blessed with dazzling starlight after sundown.

Advertisement

Yet all that changed when, at approximately 11.45 pm, a greenish hue began to illuminate the scene, revealing the contours of surrounding hills that had been cloaked in darkness. At first, it seemed as though some sort of expensive lighting effect had been put into operation by the party’s organizers, but as the glow intensified over the next few seconds it became clear that something truly amazing was unfolding above us.

As the comet passed overhead, its luminosity was so extreme that we found ourselves plunged into broad daylight, with views extending for miles into the distance as though the planet had suddenly rotated a full 180 degrees. And then, as abruptly as it appeared, the comet vanished and the lights went off again.

ⓘ IFLScience is not responsible for content shared from external sites.

Shortly after the event, the European Space Agency (ESA) announced that its “fireball camera” in Cáceres, Spain, had captured footage of a “stunning meteor”, suggesting that the intergalactic visitor was a piece of space rock. However, subsequent analysis by both the ESA and the Calar Alto Observatory in southern Spain revealed that the object was in fact a comet.

Advertisement

“It seems this was a cometary particle. The entry speed was between 44 and 45 [kilometers per second, 27-28 miles per second]. It overflew Spain and Portugal and then burned up at around 60 kilometers [37 miles] of altitude above the Atlantic,” Head of the Planetary Defence Office at ESA, Richard Moissl, told IFLScience. “For sure, not a meteorite.”

Traveling at 161,000 kilometers per hour (roughly 100,000 miles per hour), the hunk of ice and dust caught fire as it broke apart in the atmosphere at a height of 122 kilometers (76 miles) above the ground before burning out once it reached an altitude of 54 kilometers (36 miles). Initial reports suggested that the projectile touched down in the town of Castro Daire in central Portugal, although the ESA says it’s highly unlikely that any meteorites actually made it to the ground.

Fireballs like this are made of the same stuff as the shooting stars that streak across the sky when the Earth passes through the debris field of a comet. Generally, these fragments of cosmic litter are completely obliterated long before they land, and those that do survive their descent typically do so as dust or small particles of rock.

The difference between this bolide and other shooting stars was its size. It’s pretty rare for anything this big to collide with our atmosphere, and while the spectacle may have added a touch of magic to Saturday’s party, let’s hope nothing too much larger pays us a visit – or our partying days could be over.

Deborah Bloomfield
Deborah Bloomfield

Related posts:

  1. Events leading up to the trial of Theranos founder Elizabeth Holmes
  2. “Man Of The Hole”: Last Known Member Of Uncontacted Amazon Tribe Has Died
  3. This Is What Cannabis Looks Like Under A Microscope – You Might Be Surprised
  4. Will Lake Mead Go Back To Normal In 2024?

Source Link: Rare Fireball Comet Turns Night Into Day Over Spain And Portugal In Spectacular Footage

Filed Under: News

Primary Sidebar

  • These Birds Self-Cannibalize Their Own Organs To Complete Their Non-Stop 11,000-Kilometer Migration
  • “I’ve Never Seen This Happen Before”: Space Junk Found In Western Australian Desert Reported To Have Landed On Fire
  • Armadillo Girdled Lizards Turn Themselves Into An Ouroboros To Protect Their Underbelly
  • Opium Found In Rare Ancient Egyptian Vase Dedicated To “Great King” Xerxes
  • COVID-19 mRNA Vaccines Boosted Survival Almost 5-Fold In Some Cancer Patients
  • Sleuths Uncover Hidden Message In CIA’s Mysterious Kryptos Sculpture After 35 Years
  • Meat-Eating In US Cities Emits 329 Million Tons Of Carbon – But This Could Be Cut In Half
  • The World’s Oldest Known Chimpanzee Is Over 80 Years Old, And He’s Our Favorite Chill Childminder
  • Mysterious JWST Object “Capotauro” Might Be The First Galaxy In The Universe
  • 4.4-Million-Year-Old Ankle Bone Suggests Humans Evolved From African Ape-Like Ancestor
  • Hib: The Deadliest Disease You Might Never Have Heard Of (Because Vaccines Are Awesome)
  • The Legend Of Ol’ Rip The Horned Toad Who Reportedly Survived 31 Years Of Hibernation And Met President Coolidge
  • Newly Discovered “Reset Button” Lets Mathematicians Undo Any Rotation
  • Bear-Sized Snow Sloths? Meet Megalonyx, The Ice Age Giants That Lived Until 13,000 Years Ago
  • Why Can’t Mormons Drink Coffee?
  • In 1997, A Zoo Chimp Amazed Scientists By Gathering Rocks To Throw At Visitors
  • YouTuber Films Laser Light At 2 Billion Frames Per Second In His Garage
  • The Time To Watch Comet Lemmon Is Now
  • Ig Nobel-Winning “Butt-Breathing” Technique Moves One Step Closer To Saving Lives
  • What Is The Oldest Religion In The World?
  • Business
  • Health
  • News
  • Science
  • Technology
  • +1 718 874 1545
  • +91 78878 22626
  • [email protected]
Office Address
Prudour Pvt. Ltd. 420 Lexington Avenue Suite 300 New York City, NY 10170.

Powered by Prudour Network

Copyrights © 2025 · Medical Market Report. All Rights Reserved.

Go to mobile version