Meteors speed 227,000 km per hour explode

The asteroid burns brightly when entering Earth's atmosphere, then moves westward and explodes at an altitude of about 61 km.

Cameras at the Calar Alto, Sevilla and La Hita observatories captured the moment when a meteor crashed across Spain and Portugal on November 16. The object was recorded in a SMART project conducted by the Andalusian Institute for Astrophysics (IAA).

Jose Maria Madiedo, the project's lead researcher, said the asteroid was discovered at 3:49 pm local time. It begins to glow when it enters the atmosphere at a speed of 227,000 kilometers per hour. The friction of the atmosphere turns it into a ball of fire at an altitude of about 132 km above Andalucia, Spain.

The meteorite moved westward, exploded at an altitude of about 61 km and disappeared over the southern sky of Portugal. The light it emitted was strong enough that people in this area could see with the naked eye.

Such meteors are usually comet fragments or asteroids that plunge into Earth's atmosphere and burn brightly. Most of them will be burned down, but some debris could fall to the ground. Before that, an Indonesian coffin-maker became a millionaire thanks to a meteorite worth $ 1.85 million falling on the roof.