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A large meteor illuminated the skies of Rio Grande do Sul and Santa Catarina in the early hours of Thursday (1). Many people were surprised by the phenomenon, which was captured on cameras by professional and amateur astronomers in the south of the country and by a satellite.
Bramon (Brazilian Network for Meteor Observation). Together with its partners from Clima ao Vivo, and the Heller & Jung Observatory, they recorded impressive images of the falling of the fireball, a name given to meteors that explode with great brightness.
The object was brighter than the full moon, and can therefore be called superbolic. The show lit up the night at around 01:09 AM, for less than ten seconds, enough to be seen by dozens of people from southern Brazil. Look the following video:
Intrigued, several internet users posted on social media that they saw the glow. Some even heard exploding noises or felt tremors; there are even reports of utility poles being closed.
While some were scared, others lamented that the “come, meteor” (the traditional joke about a possible event that destroys life on Earth) did not happen.
This was one of the largest bolidos ever recorded in the country. Bramon estimates that it was an object with between 3 and 10 tons of mass. It entered the atmosphere at an altitude of 100 km and exploded high above the Serra Gaúcha, in the Caxias do Sul (RS) region. Preliminary analyzes, carried out from the triangulation of the videos, made it possible to trace their trajectory.
“It began to shine about 89.5 km over the Rural Zone east of Caxias do Sul and headed north at 16.9 km / s (60.9 thousand km / h) at an entry angle of 44 ° relative to the ground. For 6 seconds, the meteor shone brightly until its final explosion and extinction 22 km above the city of Vacaria, also in Rio Grande do Sul “, says Bramon.
Due to the extremely high speed and steep entry angle, the body (a small asteroid) exploded, resulting in a super solid. This process generated a shock wave, which explains the sounds and tremors felt by the inhabitants of the region.
“The fragments that remain in the atmosphere in general are not large, they are only a few grams, but they are so fast and inclined that they release the air violently, generating a sudden increase in pressure and temperature and the strong brightness. What we feel on the ground is the shock wave, and not the result of a collision with the Earth’s surface, ”explains Diego de Bastiani, coordinator of Exoss, another Brazilian meteor monitoring organization.
On the ground, only small solid debris must have fallen, which are called meteorites. This remaining part is so fragmented that it represents little risk to people or buildings.
“An object of this size, with a noise report, earthquake, indicates that there are meteorites left, which must be scattered over a large area of the field. A very violent event, which certainly scared many people, but is very exciting for us “, says Marcelo Zurita, Bramon’s technical director.
Images from the GOES-16 meteorological satellite, geostationary at an altitude of 36,000 km, show the ray seen from space.
“This instrument was made to detect lightning. Look at several appear above the clouds. But there is one, in the center of the image, that suddenly appears where there are no clouds. It is the bolide. For these images and the videos we captured, We believe it was a more intense, more energetic event than the one generated by the Santa Filomena meteorites in August ”, Zurita explains.
The flash in the center of the image, near cities, is from a meteor that exploded.
Image: Playback
Meteor fragments are important allies in studies of the formation of the Solar System and even the emergence of life on Earth. In Brazil, there is no regulation that leaves these remnants for investigation and, in events like this, there may be races of people in search of parts of the meteor for later commercialization.
