Meteor lights up Iberian night sky in spectacular display
On Saturday, a spectacular meteor flew over part of Europe. In one of the recordings posted online by a resident of Portugal, we can see how, for a moment, the night sky becomes brighter than daylight. The phenomenon is extraordinary.
The meteor, which burned up in Earth's atmosphere, zoomed over the Iberian Peninsula during the night from Saturday to Sunday (from May 18 to 19). Almost immediately, numerous recordings of this remarkable phenomenon circulated online.
It differed from the so-called shooting stars we usually observed and looked like a neon-blue ball of fire with blue trails. The combustion of a fragment of rock that entered Earth's atmosphere produced a massive emission of light.
The European Space Agency reported that the meteor appeared to be a comet fragment that broke off and leapt through Earth's atmosphere at around 37 miles. It moved with an incredible speed of 1,700 miles per hour.
Astronomer Josep María Trigo commented in an interview with the Spanish newspaper El Pais that the meteor was probably between 8 and 12 inches in diameter.
Initially, it was thought that the remnants of the cosmic rock might have fallen around Pereira, located about 37 miles southeast of Porto.
Later, however, it was reported that after flying over the territory of Spain and then Portugal, the fragment most likely disintegrated and burned up over the Atlantic Ocean, several miles above the ocean's surface.
Local media reported that the meteor was best visible in the northern part of Portugal.
We can see many photos and recordings of this exceptional phenomenon on social media. One of the better ones is where residents of Portugal accidentally captured the meteor's flight over Earth.
